


The Chronicles of the Dark One:  Descent into Darkness

by Montreat11



Series: The Chronicles of the Dark One [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-06-26 10:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 50
Words: 109,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19765909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Montreat11/pseuds/Montreat11
Summary: They say that heroes are not born, but made. The same could be said of villains. 2nd in the Dark One Chronicles, a series that examines the life of Rumpelstiltskin. This fiction features everything that happens to Rumple and Baelfire from Milah's departure up through Rumple's vow to bring about the Dark Curse. R/R





	1. The End of One Life

Rumpelstiltskin was a spinner; that was what everyone thought of him as first and foremost. But to be precise, he was many things.

He was a spinner and a father.

He was the son of the Black Fairy and Peter Pan, though he preferred to keep that information to himself.

He was a man formerly in the military, under the King's service, to fight in the Ogre War, but had injured himself purposefully, and for that reason alone he was also the village coward.

He was a provider, a nephew, a cripple. He was a sad little man who struggled day to day with the tasks presented to him, living only so that his son could have the life that he did not.

He'd learned to be several things over the last few years of his life, some he'd chosen, others he'd had no choice. But what he found he was at this very moment, no matter how many times it had happened, shocked him each time. He was an adulterer.

Or possibly a widower-but the truth was that two years after he'd last seen his wife he didn't know if she was still alive or had succumbed to the rigors of the sea; the pirates had never come back to town to tell him one way or the other. But here he was, nearly three on a sunny afternoon, during the week, naked and in bed and not alone. However, he was well aware that this, unlike the number of times they had promised each other it was "the last time" truly was the last time it would happen.

Margery was getting married. It was a good thing for her. Over the last couple of years, ever since Milah left, they'd become…well "friends" wasn't right, but it wasn't wrong either. "Bedfellows" was probably closer to the truth. When this had all started they had a lot in common, just as they did now. They were both widows, or at least considered that among the village. They were both the only two in the village that knew the exact circumstances surrounding Milah's kidnapping. Their spouses had been having an affair with each other behind both their backs for years before her husband had died. They both were hard working and knew their businesses well. And they were both parents. Her children and Baelfire played together often, sometimes going out into the forest on long trips which allowed for them to have these private moments of "release" as Margery began to call them long ago. Finally, and most important of all, what they held most in common was that neither of them had any urge to change the situation they found themselves in. It was an odd arrangement, but it worked for them.

It had all started one particularly painful night when Bae had been out playing with her children and they had been talking. It had been an accident. He'd been crying and blaming himself for Milah's fate, for not fighting for her. Margery had been there. They had never meant to fall into bed and certainly hadn't planned on repeating such an act, but it had happened again. Over and over it had happened again. And soon they found themselves planning for it. With their children playing together, and no shame for what the village thought he often had her over or vise versa. They were not in love, though they did care for each other deeply. They were simply good friends, dedicated parents, who scratched an itch for one another when necessary. For her, he was good at providing an ear. When they lay together in bed, counting the minutes until they had to get up and dress so their children wouldn't catch them when they returned, she liked to talk. About their children, the complications that came from a single woman raising boys, about the village, the war, but never about their spouses. They hadn't done that since she had confirmed for him that Milah and Rolf had carried their relationship on behind their backs right up until he'd gone off to the Ogre War. He was happy to listen to her drifting thoughts. He was good for her. And she was good for him as well, which was why, he supposed, despite the fact that they didn't seem interested in marrying, this kept happening like it did.

They brought all of their experience into this crazy thing called sex and made each other better. She brought a tenderness that Milah never had to the bed. He liked that. He liked that she wasn't afraid to remove her shift around him. It was odd how long he'd been married, and yet never really seen, let alone touched, a pair of breasts until Margery. And though he'd never acted on it, some nights, he found himself thinking, perhaps if things had been different, if Milah hadn't needed him to marry her so badly when she did, that things might have been very different for both of them. Without their previous history, he and Margery might have made a good match. She didn't care what he'd done in the war and admired how he'd made such a great sacrifice, both physically and socially for his family. She was everything he'd always hoped Milah might have been, and yet it still wasn't enough. For this was all they could be for each other now. Good friends who cared deeply for one another, but weren't in love with one another. If he could have married her he probably should have. But they both knew that he could barely support himself and Baelfire. They had enough to get by, but not much more. It wouldn't have been possible for him to take on Margery and her three children as well. And Margery just barely made ends meat with her children, financially, a marriage would have made things worse. Besides, they both knew that she'd say "no". They saw each other as friends with certain benefits that accompanied being of the opposite sex. They didn't see each other in the way that marriage required.

"It's getting late," she finally muttered looking at the sun coming in the window. "I better go before the children get back. The village is already talking as it is."

"Now that you have your honor to uphold…"

She let out a light little laugh and dazzling smile as she shoved the blankets aside and shuffled shamelessly to the chair she'd laid her clothes over. She was pretty. It was a shame things had turned out as they had in their lives, but he wasn't sad to see her go. A brother from another village had arranged this marriage for her. She was told that he had a house, not in a village like theirs, but in a town. He was a tradesman and made good money. He was recently widowed himself and looking for a wife to help him raise his two daughters. Her brother insisted that he was a good man who had loved his first wife. By all accounts, it was a good match for the pair of them. He was hopeful that for her it might actually be the kind of marriage that she deserved, and not the kind that Rolf had provided her, not the pitiful marriage of convenience that he would have given her. This was truly an opportunity for a fresh start for her. He was just sorry to see her and the boys have to leave. It would be a two-day journey to their new home and he was certain, things being what they were, they would never meet again after they departed in the morning. His last, and only, friend would be gone. And Baelfire had grown so attached to her in the last couple of years, seeing her almost as a kind of surrogate mother for Milah; he'd miss her as well as his friends.

"Will you say good-bye to Bae?" he asked, pushing himself up to sit as she pulled the last of her skirts over her head and began working on her dress.

She nodded. "I'll see him when he comes home. I baked him his favorite pie so you have that to look forward to later."

Cherry pie. Bae's favorite, a rare treat as it was expensive. Usually, he only got it on his birthday. But Margery had told him when she first came in today, bearing a large pot of stew, that in moving she was using up the food she couldn't take with her on the road. That must have been the reason for it.

"That's everything then," she concluded tying the last of her boot laces. She collected her cloak and wandered back over to the bed. She set her cloak down on the bench by the table and then sat down on the end facing him. She stared. It was only when a cloud shifted the sun outside and changed the lighting that he saw she had tears in her eyes. That was strange to him. He had never taken her for a sentimental woman.

"You know…sometimes I thought, you and I, another place, another time…"

If he hadn't been sitting, well anchored, on his bed, a feather could have knocked him over at her words. She'd thought of that too? She'd thought that the pair of them, under a different set of circumstances, could have been…

They couldn't. These were their circumstances. There was a possibility Milah wasn't even dead, and even if she was, people changed. He and Milah had once been dewy-eyed and optimistic like this. There was no assurance that it wouldn't have changed, no matter how much Margery declared it wouldn't. If they'd lived together, there was no proof his reputation wouldn't have taken the same toll on her it had taken on Milah. They were far better off the way they were now, saying good-bye, than what they could have been together.

"You deserve far better than to be 'lashed to the village coward.'"

Margery let out a small snort and the look in her eyes began to morph almost instantly. Emotions began to race through them faster than he could catch. Sadness was one, disappointment was another. But she didn't express that particular thought, whatever it might have been. Instead, she blinked her eyes so that a single tear rolled down her cheek. She leaned forward quickly then, and gently kissed his cheek.

"Thank you for all you've done, Rumpelstiltskin," she muttered, gathering her cloak once more. "My greatest hope for you is that one day you'll realize the true extent of all that woman took from you, and you'll meet someone who will help you to get it back."

He ignored those words, simply because he couldn't see how such a hope would ever come true. She was his only friend. Without her, his chances of ever meeting anyone who would help him to discover what she wanted him to discover, seemed slim to none. He wasn't sure anyone could live long enough to fix what he was.

"Make sure your husband knows how lucky he is to have you," he insisted instead, reaching out to grab her hand and offer her a friendly squeeze.

"Every day of his life," she smiled wiping a tear out of her eye with her cloak and squeezing back. She was a strong woman. She was going to be fine. "Good-bye, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Good-bye…" he whispered as what felt like the last piece of a very old life stole out the front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! For those of you that are just checking out this fiction, welcome! For those of you who are a fan of the Chronicles of the Dark One, welcome back! I hope you'll enjoy this fiction. It's the second in the Chronicles, a series that is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of Rumple's perspective during the Once Upon a Time series. This fiction features everything that happened in the Enchanted Forest from just after Milah has left Bae and Rumple in "The Crocodile" up to the moment that Rumple vows to cast the Dark Curse in "The Return". 
> 
> The Dark One Chronicles is meant to be a companion series with my previously released series The Moments Series, which explores Once Upon a Time from Belle's perspective. This means that everything you read in Moments where Rumple is concerned will show up in the Chronicles and everything you read where Belle is concerned in the Chronicles will show up in Moments. It is just told from a different point of view. Because everything you are about to read takes place prior to Belle's birth and story there is no companion to read alongside this one. 
> 
> If you enjoy this fiction, please leave kudos and comments! I always enjoy those wonderful gems waiting for me in my inbox and I love writing back to thank you personally for reading! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!


	2. A Change in the Winds

"Papa! Papa!"

"Bae?!" He was up from his stool by the Great Wheel in a heartbeat. He'd suspected something foul the moment Baelfire had slammed the door closed but the way the boy had cast the basket in his hands to the side and was leaning against the door as if he could keep the world out made his stomach knot. "Bae, what's wrong? Are you hurt?!"

He managed to kneel down by the boy with some difficulty and ran his hands over his shoulders and arms, his chest and back, looking for wounds or broken bones. But he could find no injury apart from the fact that his eyes were round as saucers and his chest was heaving up and down as if he'd run all the way from the market.

"Bae? Bae what's wrong?"

"It happened, Papa. The Duke…he died. All the town is talking about it! And some man said pointed at me and told me to run home, that they'll get me now!"

Rumpelstiltskin sighed and pulled Baelfire in close to him so the boy could put his arms around his neck and find comfort. "It's alright Bae," he whispered rubbing the boy's back. Some days it still amazed him how small and fragile his son was, even at ten. Though part of him knew that it wasn't because he wasn't growing that he could feel every bone in his son's back as he moved. Bae was fed, but not fed enough, no one in the village was fed enough. Not in the last two years.

"Come and sit with me," he encouraged pulling himself up on his cane and leading his son into their kitchen. "We'll talk about what's happened."

What had happened was no surprise to him, nor would it be for anyone in the village or the town they lived in. The Duke, a nephew of an old friend, the man who had inherited the town from his Uncle had been in failing health for quite some time. Of course, he'd only the met the man once a very long time ago when he'd stopped by to wonder why he owned his own property. He hadn't taken the news that his Uncle had given it to him just for a moment like that well. But he'd been a healthy young man then. Since that moment he'd heard reports that the Duke operated using mostly hired help, that he sat up in the estate he'd built himself all day long, coming up with more taxes, raising rents, and all the while he coughed up blood, which was the least of the symptoms he'd heard. The Duke had become a frail and sickly man. He was not surprised to hear that he'd finally passed. He only wondered why it had taken so long.

"But Papa…if the Duke is dead, who will own the town? He didn't have any kids and someone told me he was an only child."

"Well…" he shrugged as he stirred the soup he was working on for dinner, aware the vegetables inside wouldn't add much weight to Baelfire. He needed meat and biscuits. He needed something substantial. But those things cost money they didn't have. Unless he wanted to slaughter one of the chickens outside, of course. But the eggs were good for Baelfire. Better to have eggs every day than chicken for two.

"If no heir was listed I imagine the King will choose someone new to govern. After all, it is the King's land, not the Duke's land; he was just the one to watch over it and collect the rents."

"But…this house isn't part of the Duke's land. Does that mean we're not on the Kings land either?"

He smiled as he shook his head. "No, it just means we don't pay rent like the others. We're still citizens of the King."

Or at least they were for now. Everything had its season, as Baelfire might have learned today and he had recently heard rumors that the King's son, the Prince, was growing more and more into the King he would one day be as well. The King was in failing health too. It was only a matter of time until they had a new monarch and that was if the ogres didn't take over the Kingdom first. This war had been dragging on for thirteen years now, with no end in sight. Things were not getting better, it was only getting worse. He loved this house, and this village he'd grown up in, but he'd lately begun to wonder how far he and Baelfire would make it if they left. Would they be able to avoid the ogres? Could they make a new life in a Kingdom beyond this war? Theoretically, they could make a new life anywhere, but there were some inherent difficulties with getting there. His leg was the first one, his livelihood, the spinning wheels, were another. Certainly, if push came to shove he could buy new ones, but that too would cost money, money they didn't have, money they'd need for shelter and land and a home. Leaving would certainly be the safe thing to do, but would it be the best thing to do when this war was so unpredictable. He didn't know. And the fact that he had no control over the fate of his family made him sick to his stomach. Perhaps that was good, more food for Bae.

"Papa…" Bae remarked with a small voice, his eyes glued to the space on the table in front of him. "What did the man mean when he said 'they'll get you now'? Why did he say that?"

Rumpelstiltskin let out a small snort as he felt anger boil within his chest. Comments like that were the reason he'd been so reluctant to let Baelfire start making trips into town. But he was ten, he'd argued, all his friends at school helped their parents do things in town, why couldn't he?

The reason had been because he didn't trust the people in town not to make stupid comments like that, not to tell him things he shouldn't hear about his mother or the days she darkened the doorstep of the tavern or sold the yarn just as he was doing now. He loved his son, but he was very aware that for every decent adult in the world who would be kind to him, there was one who would be cruel just as that man had been. That was why they'd compromised.

Baelfire wanted to help, and he wanted to encourage that, but in a good, safe way. Therefore, Baelfire was allowed to sell to the regular customers, the ones he'd had standing orders from in town, who had known Baelfire since before Milah had gone because he'd often walked there with his parents. There was the baker and the butcher, twine to hold parcels together. There was Lydia and her sister Alma, the weavers who often requested yarn. Then there was the tailor who requested thread. Getting them their orders was Baelfire's job, as was going to fetch the wool from the shepherds. He told himself that it was good, easy work for a boy his age to do. And it was good for Baelfire. But the story he'd just told him, that was always something he worried about. That was why he wouldn't let him sell to strangers. There were simply too many cruel people in the world. And it took everything that he had in him to trust he'd come back to him every time he sent him off to town, especially when he heard that there were pirates in port.

"He said it to scare you, Bae," he explained to his boy. "There are just some people who like to scare children. But you shouldn't take what they say to heart. You'll be fine."

"But what was he talking about, Papa?" Bae pressed. "Why would he say that? Why wouldn't things be fine."

That, he was certain, was not something Baelfire needed to know about. Of course, he couldn't be positive, but he had a feeling that he knew what the man had meant and it was something that he wished he hadn't heard about, frankly. It was a disgusting rumor, one that he was made uncomfortable with because breaking rules and finding loopholes reminded him far too much of his father.

There was a rumor that in other villages the age to fight in the Ogre Wars was being lowered from seventeen. He'd heard stories that made his skin crawl. In some villages, like theirs, it had gone down only to sixteen, but others fifteen. He'd heard of at least one village where it had been lowered to eleven. He wanted to believe that it wasn't true, that it was nothing but fear getting the better of people, but it was all too easy for him to picture in his mind all children, boys and girls, over the age of eleven being rounded up, handed swords, given no training, and send out to the battlefield to fight. The only reason news had been spread this far was because tragedies always garnered the most talk, and all the talk of this event told him that none of the children had survived.

In some villages it was rumor, in others it was fact, here, though, it was only whispers. Fighting was still restricted to men and women over the age of sixteen. Not that there were many left anymore. Thanks the to the war, everyone's birthdays were now public record, and it was becoming common place for soldiers to show up on the day of a young man or woman's sixteenth and take them away. The idea that they might lower the age further in this village was unthinkable, but still whispered about nonetheless. Most thought it was appalling. Some, like the man Bae encountered, obviously thought it was not.

"Oh...you never know, Bae. He was probably just thought it would scare you. But you're not scared, are you?" he asked hopefully, with a smile on his face that he prayed might comfort his son. "Are you scared, son?"

Bae looked up with wide bright eyes and finally offered a smile back. "No, Papa! He didn't scare me."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded with pride. "Brave boy. Now keep eating, it'll be time for bed soon," he commented pouring what he had from his bowl into Baelfire's.

"Papa, aren't you hungry?!" Baelfire argued. He shook his head as he rose to wash out his bowl.

"Nah…all I did today was sit and spin, doesn't take much to keep that kind of energy up."

He was skinny already and frankly, he needed to be. The less he weighed the less weight on his ankle and the less weight his hands had to bear when he used his cane to wander around. And then there was the fact that the less he weighed, the more Bae would weigh. It was worth it.

"Papa…what do you think the new Duke will be like?"

He sighed as he cleaned and listened to Baelfire slurp his soup loudly, a good cover for his growling stomach. "It's difficult to say, son. It's pointless to speculate without information. All we can do is wait and see. You never know, things might even get better with the new Duke."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're not going to jump into Rumple becoming the Dark One immediately in this. Though Rumple as the Dark One is one of the two main points of this fiction (Rumple and Baelfire being the other), we are going to take some time to let things build. After all, when we left Baelfire in TDOC:BC Baelfire was about seven. The earliest we encounter him on the show following that is just before he's taken when he's in he's 13 going on 14. Therefore I added just a bit of space between those two events not only to let things breath but also to continue our work from the last fiction. Remember, if we want to tear him down completely we have to leave him with nothing. From where Rumple sits now, there's still a bit he could lose.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you RolfB for commenting on this fiction! I'm so thrilled that everyone saw the point of the last chapter and even happier to hear how many of you were actually hoping something like that might happen between Margery and Rumple! Funny how that works! You'll see Margery again but it won't be for a while. She pops up in one other chapter and she does write Baelfire and Rumple in a few others, but I still think her role in this fiction will be pretty important. I hope you'll enjoy what we've got in the chapters ahead! Peace and Happy Reading!


	3. The New Guy in Town

Things did not get better under the new Duke. And they certainly didn't stay the same. He remembered how wonderful this village, this town really, had been in his childhood, before the war. No, they'd never been a privileged society, certainly nothing like the town where the King dwelled who lived lavishly or so he'd heard, but they'd had good lives. They'd had fulfilled lives. In two months, the new Duke had changed all that.

He didn't live like Mr. Oak, though he suspected very few in Mr. Oak's position did. And he certainly didn't live sparingly in a home in town like Mr. Oak's nephew. Upon his arrival, he'd put people to work and created for himself a grand castle in the woods. He hadn't met the Duke in person or even seen him, no one had. Almost all that happened in town was at the command of the head of his guard, a man named Hordor. He'd heard some terrible things from Baelfire about Hordor, and even worse things from the boys that were being recruited to help build his home. He was haughty and arrogant. He was constantly daring people to go against him and "see the consequences" but no one ever did. All the villagers talked as though they would, "one day I'll introduce the side of his face to my fist and 'see the consequences'", "one day we'll teach him who is boss", "one day I'll get the chance to stand up to the creep". But one day never seemed to come. And the situation seemed to descend a little further into madness every day.

Taxes had gone up almost overnight. The land, the beautiful gorgeous fields they'd once prized were overturned. Plant, plant, plant! Those were the Duke's orders, but Hordor enforced them as if they were his own. If the rumors were to be believed he'd gotten his title by surviving a particularly brutal battle in the Ogre War and was determined to still "fight the good fight" in any way possible. Fifty percent of anything produced was collected, a tax that wasn't money. It was loaded up onto the carts and taken away, off to help fight the war. At first, it had been just food, but soon it became anything. He spun and toiled and worked well into the night until his back hurt so much he knew he'd walk with slumped shoulders for the rest of his life. One spool to sell, one to give, one to sell, one to give, sell, give, sell, give. And of course, there were no profits to be made from what was given away. He paid for the wool and never made it up. They had been poor before, now they were practically broke. He was more thankful than ever for Mr. Oak, and how he'd given him the land years ago. He doubted that his old friend had ever foreseen something this bad happening, but it was that action alone that spared him rent and allowed him to at least feed Baelfire every night.

Keeping his son occupied was getting harder as well. He wanted him to attend school, it was the most important thing Baelfire could do at a time like this. But Bae's interest in it waned as the students did. With the increased demand in production, and nearly every man in town off fighting the war or sent home injured, sons and daughters had been pulled out of school to help make ends meet at home. Bae had always liked school, but he didn't like being the oldest boy there. And it terrified him to see that at ten, his son was the oldest.

Still, every day he sent him on his way with the others who were left, with promises that he could spend time with the children his own age when he returned. It was a blow. Though Baelfire was never the spinner he was, and probably never would be, he was still well aware that any bit of help would be better than none at all. But after stripping Baelfire of the job of selling to regular customers in town, he couldn't bear to deprive the boy of anything more. Even if that meant he now spent his days at other houses, helping his friends parents before him.

He spun day and night. He spun until his fingers were stiff and sore and grew rough from the soft wool. He spun until he had no choice but to pull himself from his work, pour himself into bed for a couple of hours, and then get up to see Baelfire off and get back to work. There was dinner to get onto the table after all. He couldn't let his son down as he had let Milah down, as his father had let him down.

It was the one day that school wasn't in session, Baelfire had gone out to get more wool to spin, the only chore he'd given the boy all week, it was then that he felt a disturbance before he heard it. The ground was vibrating, then shaking. It wasn't as bad as it had been all those years ago when the army had run through town. But it was bad enough to draw him away from his wheel and to the window. He wasn't the only one who felt the change. Those who were outside, even the children playing instead of working for once were looking around for the source of the anomaly.

It didn't take long to locate it. Outside, it was easy to make out the rising dust coming down the road, as well as the whoops and hollers from the horse's riders urging them forward. Parents rushed into the street and grabbed their children, clearing the way for riders they knew wouldn't stop. Baelfire was back. Looking for him had been instinct and he only located him just in time, staring down the long road like the rest of the children, wool in hand, too entranced to notice he was in the way.

"Bae!" he called, striding forward. His son didn't hear him. It was only because he gave a great tug against his collar that jerked him back he was able to move just in time. But the surprise made him lose his grip on the basket of wool and he did his best to hold Baelfire close and not mourn the loss of the pennies that wool had cost, now useless and trampled underfoot of the horses.

He expected things to go much like they had the last time he'd seen this kind of herd of ponies, for them to jump the fence the village was working on and run off into the field. But they didn't. Instead they stopped right in front of him and his heart stopped when he realized that he recognized the man sitting in front.

Long ago, after he'd broken his own ankle to get back to the son, the army had questioned him, trying to figure out if he'd committed a crime or not. His entire unit had been slaughtered, and ultimately he'd been free to go because they could find no evidence of falsehood in his tale. With his commanding officers and unit dead there was no one to deny his claims. But he always had a suspicion that the general who had interviewed him hadn't believed a word he said and would have had him executed if he could. That man sat before him now, astride a black horse, holding parchment in his hand and giving orders to the soldiers around him that they were in the right place. He'd never learned the name of the general who'd questioned him. But he knew it now without being introduced.

Hordor.

It was him.

He watched in terror as the soldiers around him dismounted and stood by their horses while Hordor unrolled the parchment and took a breath. "'Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known to all who hear that one decade and three years ago Ogres invaded this land. By proclamation of the King, every family shall submit two members of their family for fighting. The qualifications of those individuals shall be determined by the overseer of each town.' And that would be the Duke," he added menacingly rolling up the parchment and looking around at the scared faces before him. "Knowing my experience, he's asked me for my opinion on what makes a fine soldier. He has given me authority over these decisions. I've determined that any man, or woman, over the age of fifteen and physically able…is qualified."

He'd never heard such anger in all his life. People cried out. Husbands, the few they had left, argued about sending women to war, mothers held their babies tight and wailed in disbelief. And somewhere deep within his chest, Rumpelstiltskin felt something unknot. He felt relief as he held Baelfire close to his side. The boys eleventh birthday was on the horizon. He was too young to serve. And as for him, he was not physically able. They were safe.

But others were not. At nothing but a nod from the General, he was shocked to see soldiers leave their horses and begin going through homes. There were screams as people, mothers, children, and maids included, were pulled from them and onto the street with their families.

"Papa!"

"It'll be alright, Bae," he insisted. He never took his eyes off the spectacle, but he could hear the terror in his son's voice and feel it in the grip he maintained on him. They were questioning family members, and though he couldn't hear what the questions consisted of, he was shocked to see them wrench families apart, taking mothers from children and daughters from parents. When they complained their hands were bound, for they were already considered part of the army and therefore, by arguing, they commit the crime of insubordination.

"Papa!" he looked up to see the man, Hordor, finally circle around to the two of them with a soldier holding a parchment.

He squeezed Baelfire harder to his side. "Just be truthful, Bae. Nothing bad will come if you speak the truth."

Hordor stopped in front of him. He had expected the man to focus on his son, the stronger of the pair who didn't need a cane. He expected he'd have to prove his age. But Hordor only stared at him, his eyes searching for something.

"Don't I know you?" he finally asked of him.

He'd told Baelfire to be truthful, and he meant it, but somehow he felt that the story was different for him.

"No," he answered casting his eyes to the ground and letting his hair fall over his face, obscuring it from the man's view. "No, I-I-I don't think so."

"Residence of Rumpelstiltskin, medical discharge from the King's army, his wife, Milah, and his son Baelfire…only ten, my Lord."

"M-M-Milah isn't-"

"Rumpelstiltskin…" Hordor repeated. When he finally looked up his stomach twisted at the sight of recognition in his eyes. He'd found the answer he'd been searching for. "It's hard to forget a name like that. You fought in the Battle of Blood Mountain…or at least you were supposed to, before that ankle. Where is your wife?"

"My wife?"

Hordor rolled his eyes. "Since you are unable to serve and the boy is too young…for now, that leaves only your wife to serve on behalf of your family."

"Please, Sir. I-I-I don't-"

"She's dead!" Baelfire declared.

"Dead?" Hordor questioned looking down at him.

"Since I was little."

Hordor laughed and looked around at his men so that they chuckled too. "You mean littler than you are now, no doubt."

"I'm not afraid of you!"

"Baelfire!" he chastised as the smile vanished from his face.

Hordor took a step forward, his eyes boring into Baelfire's, trying to intimidate the child. The grip he maintained on his son was bone crunching, there was pain in his ankle from how much weight he had on it, but all the while his heart was racing. He was trying to put on a brave face, but he knew his bodying was quaking in fear. All it would take was one good yank to pull Bae from him. And one forged document to force him into service. He'd known very little about Hordor, but suddenly, looking into his eyes, he wouldn't put a fraud like that past him.

"No!" A scream from across the home of Netty and Eilmy and their five children drew the attention away from the pair of them. It was Netty. Eilmy, who had lost his leg entirely in the war, was shielding his children. In her hand, Netty held a sword, pointed at the two men who only seemed to have eyes for the two oldest children. Zax and Talula, the village's only set of twins, were fifteen.

"You shall not take my children from me by force!" she warned.

Hordor laughed as he parted the crowd to examine the scene. "Foolish woman, arrogant to raise a sword at a soldier."

"I'm better with a blade than all your men combined," she hissed. His eyes widened. Was that true? He'd never known Netty to do anything but churn butter! But he could see the confidence in her eyes and watched with just as much anticipation as everyone else in the village at her claims. Her father had been a blacksmith. She'd grown up around swords, was it possible?

"Well then, let's put that to the test," Hordor muttered. "Men…take the boy and if this…woman, is as good with a sword as she says, leave the girl. We'll take her instead."

Netty's eyes went wide in shock but only for a second before the soldiers advanced. She didn't startle or fright. Instead, to his shock and awe she dove into action at the first soldier that raised his blade to her. There were shouts of wonder and surprise throughout the rest of the village as she felled her opponent in two strikes. That gave the other three soldiers waiting to go after her pause…and it made something far more potent than confidence sparkle in Netty's eyes. It was determination.

"Well, don't just stand there! Take her!" At Hordor's orders, the others finally stepped forward all at once, as if they had decided that together they might be stronger than apart. They were a challenge for her, without a doubt, but he'd never seen a woman fight with such gusto and expertise. She was a blur, moving quickly and gracefully all at once. It wasn't in two strokes, but soon enough one of the three was down. She took his sword as well and soon enough the second met his match as well, howling in pain as blood dripped down his chest and through his armor.

"She's going to do it, father! She's going to beat them!" Bae muttered astounded.

It was only when he opened his mouth to agree with him that he realized…she wasn't. She was fighting a battle that could not be won. She'd felled the four soldiers Hordor had sent after her, but as he looked down their dirt road he saw dozens more. She couldn't take on all of them. Her battle was in vain. Almost like this war against the ogres seemed to be. And she knew it too! The last of the soldiers was on his knees. His sword had fallen far out of his hands and she held him there, the tip of her sword just under his chin. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard sobbing.

Then, something unexpected…

Netty's face turned red, her eyes began to water as she opened her mouth silently again and again, as if there was something caught in her throat she couldn't get out. It was only as she backed away and dropped the swords in her hands, falling to the ground with her hands wrapped around her neck, that he realized what she couldn't get out, or take in, was air.

He didn't know his grip on Baelfire had gone slack until he held him close again. Hordor was laughing. Eilmy was hobbling to her side as her lips turned purple. Someone, somewhere in the village, shouted: "Look!"

Out in the field beyond the bounds of their fence was a man, riding on horseback, his face hid by a cloak black as the clothes he wore. He was holding a staff of some kind.

Rumpelstiltskin felt his eyes widen in shock. He couldn't be sure how he knew, but somehow he was aware that the man was responsible for Netty's sudden collapse on the ground.

The moment she was down Hordor held up a hand, and he watched as Netty took a fresh gulp of air. Her body quivered beneath Eilmy's hands and she looked as though she would pass out at any moment.

"I see you've met my friend, The Dark One," Hordor muttered kicking the closest sword away from Netty. It was a useless gesture, anyone could see that there was no chance Netty would have been able to pick it up and fight. She was too weak. "He works for the Duke, and that means he works for me, and that was only a small taste of what he can do." His voice was no more than a whisper, as the Dark One sat out in that field, but Rumple was sure that it was so quiet all the village had heard him. Even the horses had gone eerily silent. "Take her into custody. Take the boy and girl as well!"

"But you said-"

"And what do you plan to do about it cripple?!" Hordor roared at Eilmy's argument. "Do you plan to fight as well? Would you like the Dark One to leave your other children as orphans?"

His stomach turned at the impossible and terrible choice Eilmy was suddenly confronted with. Put up a fight for the twins and let the three youngest suffer, or give in, let them take his family to spare the rest. He was nearly in tears at such an impossible choice and suddenly very happy that he and Milah had only had Baelfire and he'd never have to make a decision like that. His only task was keeping Bae safe from those age requirements. Eilmy wasn't that lucky.

"That's what I thought," Hordor commented in Eilmy's silence. "Take the others…we're done here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yet we are still not done breaking Rumple down! We have a few more chapters before we get to that point but I do like this chapter as it introduces Hordor back into the picture. I do believe I told you in the last fiction that you would see the soldier who questioned Rumple after the hammer incident again. It was honestly a decision I made because Hordor seemed to really have it out for Rumple when we met him. And while there could be any number of reasons for that, I liked the idea that he's been holding this grudge since Rumple ducked out of his fight. There would be an immediate dislike there and lots of disrespect between the two. It just seemed like a no-brainer to me.
> 
> Thank you tons RolfB for your very kind comments! I'm happy that you are liking it so far. I know that these chapters must seem weird because on the one hand they are covering a lot of time but on the other we're going sort of fast through these years. I promise it will slow down eventually, with the bulk of this fiction taking place in one year, but for now I have a lot to cover quickly. More on the Dark One is coming at you in the next chapter! On we go! Peace and Happy Reading!


	4. Dark Tales From Beyond

It was only very cautiously and with much thought and stress that he'd made the decision to leave Baelfire alone tonight. His son, on the other hand, couldn't understand what his problem was. He was going to be twelve in just one week, he was certainly old enough to stay by himself. Hadn't he gone to town to sell by himself before?! He'd had to carefully reply that it was all true, but that was years ago, when times were different, before the Dark One.

For more than a year now that creature had haunted their town. No one knew who or even what he was, only that he possessed great magic and only showed up when Hordor arrived to take more children as soldiers. Their village was no longer the happy, lively place it had once been. Now it was filled with only sadness and memories. There were men, but the ones who were left were either just boys, like his son, or ones like himself who had been wounded in the war. There were women too, but while once it had seemed like they were overrun with women in the wake of so many men being taken now it seemed like every month they got a little more even. The elderly were left, and the young were left. A new baby hadn't been born in the village in almost nine months and unless someone was keeping a secret it didn't look like there would be any born in the next nine-a vast difference when it once seemed like he and Milah couldn't go a week without hearing of a new birth. Not that he could blame the mothers. Who would want to bring a child into the world like this? And Hordor…

Hordor was ruthless. He'd said one man and one woman from every family but what he'd forgotten to mention was that death didn't excuse the service. There were entire families that had now been wiped out by the war, and it wasn't unusual for parents to find out their child had died only when the soldiers came for another one. The saddest of them all had been Tilly, who had stayed at home with her children as long as possible and when they finally came for her, she'd taken her son, eleven years old with her to war, declaring that if he didn't go now, it would only be a matter of time until they returned for him. At least this way they could go together. Hordor hadn't refused. Their house was in shambles now, abandoned and falling apart like so many others down their little dirt road. Some had tried to run away, but he'd heard very few success stories. The rumors were that the Dark One hid in the woods at night, stopping men and women and turning them over to Hordor as he found them.

Who was this entity? How had he acquired his power? Where had he come from? Why was he working for the Duke?

Those questions, ultimately, were what drew him away from Baelfire. He'd heard a rumor, that one of the ships that had recently come into dock had experience with this Dark One and that he'd spent his nights at the pub fearlessly warning the townspeople about him. He considered it his duty before he left port. But the ship wasn't to be docked much longer, they'd concluded their business and were set to sail tomorrow. Tonight, was the last night he'd be in town. And while he could have tried to ask those in the village what he was saying, he'd learned that rumors, while always true in some form, grew to the point that the truth was hard to find. If he was to truly learn anything that might help to protect him and his son from this creature, he had to hear it firsthand.

He'd shivered the entire way into town. In the darkness he'd been alert to every noise, every branch that snapped, every leaf that rustled, wondering, fearing the Dark One in his midst. He had only a small blade on him for protection, but what had happened all those years ago with Fendrake the Healer was on his mind. He hoped, if it came down to it, he might be able to use that blade to help himself and therefore Baelfire. But the truth was that he didn't know if he could or not. For all he knew, he might freeze again, just as he had on Jones's ship…but that was a memory he would rather not revisit.

For possibly the first time in his life, he felt a sense of ease at the sight of the pub up ahead. That was where the man was. The Dark One hadn't caught him. Hordor hadn't been in sight, though he knew he was probably off sleeping in the castle he'd had the town build for him. And the man, the sailor who had been telling people about the Dark One…it was obvious he was in the right spot the moment the door opened.

They were hardly discreet. Huddled in the corner a small group with only a few from his village and many more he didn't recognize from the town, nearly all of them looked up with panic the moment he opened the door. The instant they spotted him he heard someone muttered "it's just the old spinster…it's okay, keep going." But before the sailor could "keep going", he hobbled over to that same crowd and tried to find a seat to make himself comfortable, only to find that most were gone and he'd have to stand if he wanted to listen.

"What do you want here, Spinner?" one of the women shot at him.

He put his weight on his cane in an effort to make himself comfortable and remind himself that he had every right to be here and couldn't give in and flee. "Please, I-I-I just want the same thing you want," he answered quickly. "My boy safe."

"And have you come to tell us what you know about all this yet?"

This time, the voice belonged to a man, one who hadn't even bothered to turn around to look at him. Instead, this man just sat there, he sipped his ale and managed to sound wholly innocent and yet, at the same time, utterly accusatory. What he knew about all this? What did that mean? Surely they didn't think he was involved?

"W-wh-what I know?" he stuttered out, feeling every eye in this strange huddled mass suddenly on him.

"About the Dark One and magic…" Suddenly the man stood up. She swung his legs around the bench he'd been sitting on and stood face to face with him, or rather face to chest, as he was significantly taller. He was smiling. But the smile on his face was not friendly. It chilled him to the bone. "Everyone knows, those women you lived with after the scum that was your father left town…they were witches."

He felt emotions he hadn't felt in years boil back to the surface and simmer in his chest. Sadness for the memory of his beloved aunts, anger at such a hateful persistent comment, and something he imagined dogs must have felt when animals crossed into their territory. His aunts were good people who kept their magic carefully hidden. As far as he was concerned the village never accused them based on magic, just on how they lived. It wasn't fair.

"No," he managed to choke out. "Lies. Th-they weren't-"

"Lies?! According to who? To you?" without warning the man reached out and gave him a little shove that forced him back a few steps and nearly to his knees when he couldn't get his cane under him in time and his ankle buckled under his weight. The only thing that kept him upright was his quick action to grab the empty seat behind him. "Just because you believe something doesn't make it true," the man continued. "Our children are dying, and all you have to offer is silence?!"

"Hey!" Just as the man was about to round on him again, an unfamiliar man who smelled like an ocean, unmistakably the sailor he, as well as everyone else, had come to see, grabbed the scruff of the man's neck and yanked him away. "You're right, just because you believe something doesn't make it true. So open your eyes, because there is truth to what he says."

His sentence brought calm to the room, it brought a magical mystery as no one bothered themselves with him and what his aunts may or may not have been, but turned back to the sailor. He was different than the other sailors and pirates he'd known, his eyes were distant. And sensing the danger had passed he watched as he strode back to the place he'd occupied at the table and sat back down. The others crowded him, and he very quickly fought to stand upright once more and join them so that he might hear too. It was, after all, what he'd come for.

"Magic can have many faces, but there are only two sides of it. Light Magic, practiced by good witches, and Dark Magic practiced by the bad. I'll bet you can figure out which the Dark One serves," he added before taking another drink.

"How do you know about him?" a man who was lucky enough to get a seat across the table questioned with desperate pleading eyes. "How do you know about magic?"

The sailor smirked. "I've sailed all around this world, and things are vastly different beyond your Kingdom. I have been all over Mist Haven a dozen times, sailed the five seas, I've visited the Lands Beyond, and somewhere along the way found myself in the land that Merlin himself called home."

"Merlin?!" a woman questioned.

"Who is Merlin" another asked.

"Was," the Sailor quickly corrected. "He was a great man, with magic beyond your imagination. In his time, he used his magic to help people, stop wars, heal the sick, keep peace. But…" The Sailor paused to take a breath, and it was only then that he realized he was holding his own, along with everyone else who had their eyes on him. He'd hardly told him anything, but there was something otherworldly about him that demanded attention and respect. "It is also told that the Dark One hailed from the same land as Merlin and bested him."

"Bested him?" a man gasped. "This great, good sorcerer could not overcome him?!"

The Sailor shook his head before taking another drink. "No," he finally answered. The breath they'd all been holding was exhaled in one big gust of fear and nerves. A man like Merlin couldn't defeat the Dark One? What chance did they stand? "Merlin has not been seen for centuries."

"Centuries!" a woman echoed before glancing at her husband and reaching out for his hand. "You mean the Dark One has lived for centuries?!"

Again the Sailor offered a smirk and a shrug. "Some say 'yes', others say 'no'," he answered mysteriously. "What I can tell you, what I've told all the others who have been in here to ask me questions is that the Dark One is the real creature to be feared. Not the Duke or the Ogres, though I know they are both a great threat on their own."

"No," the man beside him, the one who had shoved him, insisted. "No, the Dark One works for the Duke. He's trying to stop the Ogre War by helping him to take our children. We've all seen it!"

There were murmurs of affirmation from his neighbors and Rumpelstiltskin himself had to nod in agreement with them. How could he not? From what he'd seen, it certainly appeared that this entity, this Dark One, supported the Duke in his mission to retrieve their children and send them to the battlefield.

The Sailor was quiet for the longest time, he said nothing as he looked at them over the top of his mug, before finally slamming it down on the table and laughing. It wasn't just him that jumped at the action, but several standing around him as well. The laugh was mocking. It wasn't a noise one made when hearing a joke or even when something was funny. It was meant to make them feel like fools the moment it stopped just as abruptly as it began.

"Is that what you think?" he questioned before leaning forward. "The Dark One had the ability to best Merlin himself, you think, if he wanted this war won, he couldn't just walk out onto that battlefield and send the Ogres away with a flick of his wrist?! There are untold places he could send those demons where they would never haunt mankind again and yet he sits here, willingly doing the Duke's bidding. That is crazy talk."

Deep down he felt his stomach turn upside-down at the news. In the beginning, he'd wanted to deny it, just like all the others sitting there listening to him, but he couldn't deny that the logic he presented him with was solid. If this Merlin was truly as powerful as this man said he was then it seemed logical that he could rid them of the beasts. And yet he didn't. Why follow the Duke's plans then? Why be beholden to a man less powerful? It didn't make sense to him any more than it did to anyone else. Not anymore.

"So, why does he do it?" a boy, only a teenager asked.

The Sailor shrugged. "Hard to say. In all the stories I've heard, the Dark One has always had an insatiable thirst for power. Perhaps he's using the Duke as a stepping stone, to get more of it somehow. Then again, perhaps he's just bored and enjoys torturing your little town while he enjoys the company of the Duke. Whatever the reason, he's here. Take my advice," he muttered, putting a few coins on the table and rising to leave. "Stay clear of him, he is to be feared and obeyed."

The man placed his hat over his head and made a motion to leave but the man beside stopped him in much the same way he'd stopped him, stepping right into his path and letting his size do the talking.

"But what about our children?" he asked quietly, so quietly he was certain that if he hadn't been standing right there, he might not have heard the question. "I've heard a rumor that Hordor is going to lower the age to fourteen soon! My boy turns fourteen in a month. If he keeps going there won't be any village left! And now we hear that Hordor is having the Dark One guard the woods at night?! You offer wisdom, but where is the help in your words?"

His tone was menacing, but suddenly he had all the sympathy in the world for the father beside him. If the rumors were true then his son was on the brink of being sent off to war, a war that few came back from. He thought of Baelfire, sleeping soundly back home, his own twelfth birthday arriving far too quickly for his taste. He was right. First sixteen, now fifteen, fourteen wouldn't be far behind, and that meant that his boy may only have a year until he went away at thirteen. He strained his ears to hear the sailors reply. He couldn't lose his son. He couldn't. He'd lost far too much already and gone to great lengths to ensure he would be safe. He had to make sure Baelfire was safe. Or else he would wonder for the rest of his life, if he'd fought on the battlefield that day, would Baelfire still be paying the price now?

"Your situation is regrettable," the Sailor stated before looking around at the crowd he'd drawn. "You have my sympathies, truly you do, but I don't know what to tell you. Either find a way to get out while you can, the water seems your safest course, or stay and submit to the Dark One's wrath. Submit," he insisted "for if you try to fight it, you will surely fail."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact, this chapter wasn't planned, prompted, or plotted until I had written the last chapter. I had originally gone from the last chapter right into the next chapter when I realized up until the last chapter there had been no mention of the Dark One. Zip! And it dawned on me at that point that I had to have some kind of chapter where the townspeople learned about him. After all, they saw him take down the couple in the last chapter but beyond that they don't have reason to be scared of him or even know what he is. Before I moved onto the next chapter I had an "oh, shit, I have to say more about this" moment. So, without planning or prompting or plotting, I wrote this chapter. Again, this was a year ago at this point, and this chapter did get the same editing that everything else did, it just didn't get the thought the other chapters did. I hope you didn't notice and that you are reading this now thinking "oh, I never would have known", but if it seems a little flimsy, that could be why.
> 
> Thank you very sweetly RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I hope you will like this chapter even if it was unplanned. I tried to make it a bit like a ghost story around the campfire, some things that the man says are true some things that he says are not. The man is no one that will ever come back into the story again but I like to think his heart is in the right place, but he's also enjoying the attention probably a bit too much. For whatever reason I imagine that he's low man on the totem pole on whatever ship he serves and this gives him a bit of power he doesn't have on that ship. Weird how we give characters that exist for one chapter no name but entire back stories! Peace and Happy Reading!


	5. Bad Gets Worse

Baelfire was growing up fast. Too fast, in his opinion. His thirteenth birthday had been wildly successful for the boy. In fact, it was difficult to recall a day that had been better than this day that they'd had today. All around them were reminders, proof that outside their little bubble of happiness things were not great, the red sky above where the Ogre War was taking place was one of them. It was a constant warning that the ogres were not defeated, that they were creeping ever forward, and the occasional boom of a canon they heard served that purpose as well.

But today was happy. Today was Baelfire's birthday. And thanks to a plan he'd had in the works for a long while, he'd had more than enough money to scrape together a decent cake and a ball for Bae. Sitting outside, watching Baelfire play with it with his friends, who, for once, were not worried about the sounds and sights of war but merely who was winning the game of kickball, was rewarding all on it's own. Other parents had come out to watch as well, caught up in the momentary high of their children laughing and playing together instead of working or screaming. If he closed his eyes and ignored the smell of ash and explosion that was in the air almost constantly these days, he could almost think it was years ago. He could pretend that the war was over, the Duke and his dark friend had never come to town, Margery was across the street making cookies, and Baelfire and her children were playing together, happy and safe. He could almost pretend, but then someone shrieked or laughed and in his desperation to know what they were laughing about forced him to open his eyes and confront that red sky, the reminders hit him all over again.

Across the way, Shandera caught his eye and offered a small smile before turning back to watch the children. That glance allowed him to sink back into the feeling joy, of their children and his playing together as children should. It wasn't often he had this feeling of euphoria, the feeling that he'd done something right, without doubt, but he had it now. That ball might have been the best thing he could have gotten for Baelfire, but also for the town. Usually, feelings like this only came from fatherly moments. Beyond spinning, being a father was the one joy he had. And now, at thirteen, he finally felt like he was ready to teach Bae some of the important lessons that had been passed on to him as a young boy by Mr. Oak. It was only days ago that Bae's voice had started to change, the pitch adjusting higher then lower. He was embarrassed by it, of course, as he had been when it first happened to him, but he'd only smiled and realized that before he knew it, he'd be teaching him to shave as well. And maybe they'd have a to talk about a little more. It didn't escape his notice that one of the girls that was playing ball with him now, eleven or twelve, took every opportunity she had to come over and hand his new ball to him. It was sweet.

But just as soon as he'd had time to smile over it he felt his chest tighten. What was he to say to Baelfire about all of that? He had no real wisdom to impart on him for that particular subject. Milah had always taken the lead in their relationship. She'd been the one to sit outside their home, the one to ask to walk with him to see Mr. Oak, she'd been the one to kiss him and ask questions, then ask him to the May dance. He hadn't even been the one to ask properly for her hand in marriage! Milah had taken care of that bit too! As for the rest of it, what happened after marriage, well he supposed that he could offer some advice, but Bae was far too young for all of that, to know about the fighting and compromises, to know about the delicate intimacy's and especially too young to know about how it had all gone wrong. His boy was thirteen, how was he ever going to get him through this challenging stage and on to the familiar one he actually knew about? How was his son to trust him about the things he knew if he couldn't help him with the things he didn't? He'd never before thought-

His thoughts, as well as everyone's happiness, was suspended by the blast coming from the mountains, the place where the sky had turned red long ago. That was close. It was closer than it ever had been, and he had the very distinct feeling that everyone knew it as they starred toward the sound in silence, wondering if it was to happen again. But they never got the opportunity to find out, for a moment later the ground began to shake, and the sounds he heard coming up the road were familiar not just to him, but to everyone.

The ball was forgotten. Women shrieked, they rushed to huddle their children around them. Father's, in turn, gathered women and children behind their backs. No one tried to shoo their children inside, they had enough experience now with these visits to know that the soldiers had lists of children and adults and they would tear apart the home in search of the one that they wanted if necessary. Not that there was much to chose from at this point. He was very aware that their village, the one he'd grown up in and had been the home to more than one hundred of the townspeople had dwindled to the point he suspected there were barely forty left. There would be less after today.

Hordor, along with his associates, rode into their village and stopped their horses. Even he had begun to come with less and less of his forces. With their men gone and woman unable to have children, he wasn't sure that if the war ended tomorrow this place would ever be able to recover.

Bae rushed to his side as Hordor stopped his horse right in front of them. His sneer was enough to put a foul taste in his mouth, and he reached out to hold Baelfire to his side. He didn't say anything. They just stared at each other. Thirteen. Bae was thirteen, surely that was written down somewhere.

"Not him, Sir," the soldier with the scroll said beside Hordor. "Baelfire, son of Rumpelstiltskin…he's only thirteen today according to this."

"And a very happy birthday to him, but the gift I have is for his father," Hordor stated, dismissing the man.

He looked wildly between he two as he wandered away, his eyes wide, his heart hammering. He wasn't going back to the war. He couldn't. He'd been discharged! What was this about?

"M-me? What do you want with me?"

Hordor only continued to smile as he pulled something that had been tucked into his belt. It was another scroll. Hordor unrolled it. "It is with great pleasure than I announce…" he muttered staring at him before looking back to the paper. "By order of the King, the contract given to a peasant by the name of Rumpelstiltskin, by the Duke Gabriel Oak, granting him the right to his own property is now considered null and void…"

The Duke kept reading, giving reasons, he suspected, for why the contract wouldn't be honored, but in that moment it was difficult to listen, or even hear. The world around him went silent as his mind processed what it meant. He didn't own his land anymore. The bottom dropped out of his world and he felt as though he'd taken a blow to the stomach. He couldn't breathe. Not owning the land meant now he would have rent. And the plan he'd been working on…

"But why?!" he heard Baelfire shout next to him.

"Bae, don't-"

"The land was never yours, boy!" Hordor roared as he grabbed Baelfire and pulled him back closer. "It's always belonged to the King, and he has every right to do with it as he sees fit. I'll be back in the morning to collect the rent."

"No, p-p-please! Sir!" he cried chasing after him. He wasn't even really sure where he got the courage to take the steps let alone shout when all he wanted to do was crumple to the ground in tears. "P-p-please…my land and my boy are all I have!" he begged. He was grateful that everyone was too busy crying out in despair to realize that he was on the verge of tears himself. This couldn't be real. Why him? Why now?

"P-please…I'm only a simple spinner…if I have rent I can't feed my boy, Mr. Oak…he knew that. It's why he gave me the land."

"Well…then I guess there is really only one thing to do…"

The smile vanished from Hordor's face as he took a few more steps toward him. Hordor placed a hand on his shoulder, and he jumped at the unexpected gesture. But he watched as Hordor looked around as if to make sure no one else was listening to him. His heart was racing as he dared to hope for relief, for mercy, for a deal of some kind to be made so that this wouldn't happen!

"You'll have to decide if your boy would rather a roof over his head or food in his belly."

His stomach twisted at the sinister words and he felt sick as he watched the man pull away with a deadly smile on his face, but not before muttering one final, chilling word in his ear.

"Treacherous Coward."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was always more for Rumple to lose. His land was always in the forefront of my mind every time I thought of that. You didn't think I had Mr. Oak give it to him for nothing now, did you? I wrote it so it could be taken away. I wrote a lot of Rumple's life so that he could get a taste of "the good life" and then have that taken away while the taste remained. I wanted to use it all for motivation later. You can't miss what you never had, not really, so in my mind, this all comes back later to owning his own castle, to no longer paying rent, to him forever trying to get back those feelings he's had here. You can even see it in some of Moments, he owns Storybrooke, ensuring that no one can ever do something like what the King is doing now again to him. And in Moments Beyond, that one time he and Belle pay rent, his response is that they're never doing it again because there is no money to be made, only lost. I like to think this is a little piece of that too. He doesn't like having someone else take what he considers his.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I'm so excited to get into the Dark One stuff but I'm so happy you are willing to wait with me to get through some of this before we get to that. I promise it's all important in the grand scheme of things; like I mentioned above. Peace and Happy Reading!


	6. Feudal Futility

He'd had a plan; one that he'd been working on for over a year, ever since he'd talked with that sailor who had issued a warning about leaving. Since then he'd been saving every scrap they'd gotten, working himself to the bone to spin more and collect more. That was how he'd had enough money to afford a ball and cake for Bae's birthday! His plan was simple, but life-changing. It was escape. As much as it killed him to leave his life here behind, he'd recognized that it was necessary. The memories of his aunts, this home, and Milah, those could be taken with him. And with money, a home, wheels, and a new life could all be bought. There weren't many who had listened to the sailor that day, but there were enough that he was confident that escape was possible if they left via the sea. Any other way and he feared the Dark One or ogres or soldiers would catch the pair of them. The sea, bad memories or not, was their only way out. And fortunately, there was a ship that he'd heard of that was taking people, hiding them in barrels and smuggling them out and away to a different land where they could live out their lives in peace, without ogres. It wouldn't have been easy, but they could have done it.

He'd had a plan, but that didn't matter now. If he had to begin paying rent, then he'd never be able to pay off the smugglers and have enough left over to start a new life. Now, even if they could leave, it would be no better than this situation, after paying Hordor and then the smugglers, he wouldn't even have enough left to pay for a new spinning wheel and a basket of wool to get himself started. They would be beggars. He'd lived that life once, he didn't want it for his boy. Of course, dying at the hands of the ogres…he didn't want that for his boy either.

Bae was thirteen. They'd lowered the age to fifteen. How much time did he have left before they came for him? A year? Six months? Even if the age wasn't lowered again, that still only left them with two years.

Two years…the smugglers had offered him the opportunity to take him last month, but he'd wanted Bae to have his birthday at home and not somewhere surrounded by strangers. Two years from now, that would be his biggest regret in life. He should have left when they had the chance. What was he supposed to do now? How were they supposed to move forward when he felt incompetent to do so? How was he supposed to be a good father when he'd never had one himself? How was he going teach his boy how to talk to women when he'd never excelled at it and let his wife down in such a cowardly way? How was he supposed to put a roof over his head if they had no house? How was he supposed to feed him with no money? How was he to protect him from the war when war was no longer beyond the horizon, but practically on top of them? He couldn't even protect him from that dark entity in the woods? From where he sat, it was hopeless.

It was late, the fire was beginning to die so that he could no longer read the words that were written on the parchment he hadn't let go since the Duke had put it into his hands. In the dark, he looked over at Bae, asleep in his bed. He was dreaming, his breathing was steady, and it was easy to imagine, even in the dull light, his chest rising and falling as his eyes rapidly moved back and forth beneath his eyelids. He slept so often in his bed now that he knew exactly what he looked like. Unable to move him, he often fell asleep in this chair, or the little bench in his workshop, perfectly content to have his son near. It wasn't Baelfire's fault he wasn't sleeping tonight…

He looked down at the paper in his hands again. A sob escaped his mouth, and he quickly covered it as he looked it over, the words already memorized.

What was he going to do?

"Papa?"

"Bae!"

He quickly wadded the cloth up and cast it aside as he wiped his eyes. He hadn't meant to be so loud he woke his son.

"All is well, son, go back to sleep," he muttered before rising to get another log for the fire. In a few moments, there would be at least enough light to cast the shadows far away from them so he could better watch his boy.

But when he turned his back to get the wood, he heard the sound of footsteps, and saw Bae's small hand beside his own. They both grabbed a log to toss onto the fire, and as he sat back down, Bae poked at it so that it roared to life and did more than chased shadows away, instead, it made them dance. Baelfire sat at the end of the bench at their table and looked sleepily into the flames with him. They both sat there, staring into the fire, letting the silence ripple between them. Where were they supposed to go from here?

"Papa…" Bae's voice, small and timid finally punctured the silence. He looked over at him, but found Baelfire was still staring into the fire. "Why does the general hate you?"

He sighed as the hand he had on his knee squeezed into a tight fist simply from the memory of the encounter tonight. Up until the last moment, the last word that he'd whispered to him, he had been happy to believe that Hordor didn't recognize him from all those years ago, that he simply disliked him because he was useless. But that last word, that final accusation of treachery, was enough for him to know he'd been proven wrong. The General knew who he was, he remembered. And though there was no proof or documentation that existed anywhere, he knew that his thoughts had not changed since they met as soldiers all those years ago and he'd interviewed him about his injuries, he still firmly believed they were self-inflicted. He knew it.

But Baelfire didn't. At least not as far as he knew. Milah had known, practically the entire town had when he first arrived back, and he could remember comments that had been made in Bae's presence about how he injured himself, but Baelfire had been so young! And so easily distracted! He'd hoped and prayed that Baelfire didn't remember all that. And whenever it came up, he'd always stated he was injured in the war. He couldn't bear to tell him the truth. He couldn't bear to have Baelfire's gaze change from one of trust and admiration to disgust and deception the way Milah's had when she found out. If his own boy turned on him the way the rest of the village did, he feared he'd never survive the blow.

"It's hard to say, Bae," he answered softly letting his eyes drift to the order still in his hands.

"Is it because you own this land?"

The question made his tear fall, not because it was true, but rather because it was no longer true.

"Owned," he corrected looking over the order. He didn't own this land anymore, and that was the problem. He was a boy again, faced with payments that couldn't be made and no one else to worry about them only now they truly were his responsibility. Unlike his childhood, he had to make sure Baelfire never paid for his incompetence the way he'd paid for his father's. He had to be calm, for Baelfire's sake. He disguised a sniffle as he sat up taller and tossed the fabric into the fire. It was so ingrained in his memory he didn't need to keep it to know what it said or what it meant.

"It could be," he finally answered looking over at Bae. "It could be any number of things, the least of which is that Hordor is a very unpleasant man who is set on taking his own unhappiness out on others."

"Why is he unhappy?" Bae demanded, his changing voice giving little squeaks as his frustration grew. "He has everything he could ever want! He has food and a castle! He has servants and money and horses! How could he be unhappy with all that?!"

"Because things don't buy true happiness Bae," he answered calmly and certainly. Frustrated as his son was, he reached over to grab his arm and was overjoyed when he finally met his eyes. Those eyes, that gaze was all he needed for true happiness, and Baelfire had calmed with just a touch from his father. This was an important lesson he needed to learn sooner rather than later. "True happiness comes from relationships, from having love in your life. Hordor, he has none, no wife, no children, no parents or siblings. And that lack of love creates a hole in life that can never be filled no matter how much you collect. That's all it is, Bae. You and I have treasure far more than he possesses just by having each other in this little shack."

"But now we owe rent or we don't have a place to live…" Bae pointed out sadly. Yes, there was that. "Papa…what do I have to do to help?" he questioned turning eagerly toward him. "I'll sell my clothes, the ball you got me, I'll learn how to weave, I'll spin more, just tell me what to do!"

He shook his head, unwilling to concede to what his boy was demanding. "Your job is to be a child, Bae, while you still can."

"I'm thirteen, Papa. I'm not a child anymore, this time next year I could be fighting in the Ogre War!"

His grip on Baelfire tightened, and he felt the urge to vomit at such a suggestion. "Don't even think such a thing, Bae!"

"Why is fighting so bad, Papa?" he questioned. "You fought in the war!"

"Because it's not a fight anymore, Bae!" he practically yelled, his voice echoing through the house, reminding him it was the middle of the night and he didn't want the neighbors to hear. "It's not a fight. It's a slaughter. If you go out there, you won't come back."

Bae shook his head stubbornly and began to pull away. "You don't know that for sure. You can't!"

"And I can't let them take you, Bae!" he used his cane to pull himself up and face his son. He was growing so fast, he was nearly able to look him in the eye. "You are the only thing that has any meaning in my life anymore. If you were gone…"

He had to stop. He couldn't finish that sentence, let alone that thought; it was too terrible. There were two things he truly felt he was meant to do in this life, spin wool and love his son. But he'd meant what he'd said to Baelfire earlier. It wasn't things that mattered and if Baelfire, the last relationship he had that meant something, left this earth, then no amount of spinning would ever erase the blow, no amount of yarn would ever fill the void left behind. He couldn't lose him. It wasn't even something to be discussed.

All at once, Baelfire reached out to put his hands on his shoulders then, after a moment of silence, threw them around his waist in a great hug. "I'm not going anywhere, Papa," he choked out with certainty. "We'll figure something out. Who knows, this time next year, the war could be over!"

He said it with such dedication. He wanted to share in his determination, in such a joyous thought that next year the ogres could be gone and all they'd have to worry about was rent and food, but he simply couldn't. He was a smart man, and when it came to the ogres and the concept that they might lose this war, the only certainty he had was that it would never happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It pleases me greatly to inform you that we're finally going to get into some scenes that you are going to recognize. Obviously, this isn't one of them, it's one that we never saw but I wanted to continue in my mission to tear Rumple down but this time with Bae. Yes, losing him would be the worst possible thing but him but not the only thing. Baelfire fighting, finding out he was a coward, what happened to Milah, all those things would kill Rumple just a little bit too. So here we are, still driving a thorn into that side until it all will collapse around him.
> 
> Thank you, RolfB, for your comments on the last chapter. I'm glad that you've thought these chapters have done a good job with providing motivation for future chapters. I know that at first glance this one probably seems a bit backward, but I promise this is all going to work out in the end and make lots of sense! Peace and Happy Reading!


	7. Tomorrow Becomes Today

There were two things that he had left on this earth, two things that gave him meaning and made him feel like there was some reason why he had survived as long as he had. The first, and without a doubt the most important, was his son. The second was his spinning. From the very first moment his aunts had set him down in front of a wheel, he'd felt whole, he'd felt as though he'd found his calling and his peace. He never felt like he worked, he loved what he did too much for it to ever feel like work, but lately, he was disturbed to note that it was beginning to feel more and more like it truly was labor. It was the only thing he felt like he did anymore, ever since the Duke had seized his property. He spun. On and on and on he spun. Day and night, the sound of the wheel and wool working its way through the flyer were constant noises in their house. Or was it now the Duke's house?

He hated that feeling, the feeling like he was a stranger in his own hometown, a stranger in the house he had built with his own two hands, a stranger even to his own skin. Bae helped, what little he allowed him to over schoolwork and the occasional romp with his friends outside. But for the most part, it was him. He spun before the sun rose in the morning and long after it went down. He spun when it rained and when it was bright out. He spun during mealtimes and while Bae was at school. And when he wasn't spinning, he was selling to any and all who requested thread and yarn. One for them, one for the army, who would never pay him for this work. His body hurt. His ankle ached from the stillness. His back was sore from being hunched over. His elbows and knees were tender from making so much contact. His neck, much like his back, felt permanently stiff from being bowed so often. He'd taken to working by the fire lately, even in spring and summer, just because the heat helped his body.

It had almost been a year since Bae's thirteenth birthday, almost a year since the Duke had taken his property and begun charging him rent. And over that year he felt that he'd truly wasted away to nothing but a father who worked hard to keep his boy fed, clothed, and housed. He'd watched as the money that he'd meticulously saved the year prior to that day slowly drained away. All his savings went to rent, food, books for Bae, and wool. It was almost gone now. And with it, his hopes of escape were made nearly impossible. The next time the smugglers had come around he hadn't had enough to pay them. He'd had even less the month after that. And now, if there was a way out of this mess, it wouldn't be by sea anymore. That meant they'd have to travel by land, but with no money to their name anymore, no way to bring the wheels or buy carts or horses or even a house, what good would it do? If they left now, they'd have enough money to stay at an inn when they finally arrived to safety for maybe a couple of nights. They could get a few meals before they ran out. But when they did? Then what would they do? It was too difficult a question to have an easy answer. And he knew because he'd tried desperately to find that answer.

"Papa! Papa!"

He looked up, disturbed by his work by Bae who had just come tearing through the curtain they were currently using as a door. He knew at once that something was wrong. There were tears in his eyes.

"They've come for Morraine."

Morraine. He was up in a flash and out the door. He'd been so lost in his spinning that he hadn't even noticed the sound of horses riding in! And he wouldn't have now either, all he could hear now was the sound of his own heart as he thought, worked his way through what he knew. Morraine…how old was Morraine? She was around Baelfire's age, he knew that, but how close were they? Had she turned fifteen? Awful as it was he prayed she had.

Outside, he, along with those who were left, stood by and watched the struggle. A boy bumped his elbow and ran ahead of him, and it was only later he realized it was Baelfire.

"Bae!" he called, slowing him down and forcing him to stop as he drew him closer to his side. He had the distinct feeling that if he didn't, Baelfire would fight the soldiers with sticks to help her. He stood back and listened to the cries of the girl's mother and father as they plead, begged for their daughter to be kept with them. He already knew it was useless, even now his eyes were scanning the field for the figure in black. He was certain he would be nearby.

"No!" the girl's mother cried as she was escorted to Hordor, who hadn't even had the courtesy to get off his horse. "No, don't take her! No! No, you can't take her! She's my baby! Don't take my baby!"

"Nonsense," Hordor refuted sneering down at them. "She's a fine, strong girl. She'll make a fine soldier."

"It's a mistake," her father insisted. "She's turning fourteen. Only fourteen!"

"Orders of the Duke!" Hordor shouted back at them. His stomach turned. He'd lowered the age again! No. Though he sensed the truth of it, it was too terrible to believe, and he found himself struggling to wrap his mind around it. Not this, not now. "The Ogre Wars have taken their toll this season. More troops will turn the tide." He fought back the urge to scoff at such a belief. Against ogres? In a war that had been raging for decades now?! Never.

"They lowered the age again, Papa," Baelfire stated uselessly by his side.

"I know," he muttered back. He'd managed to put that much together on his own even though his heart seemed determined not to believe it. The soldiers were a lot of things, but they never took someone when they didn't have the right to, and he knew they had information on everyone in the town. They wouldn't have come for a fourteen-year-old if they hadn't lowered the age. The only thing that surprised him was that there wasn't a great reaping this time around of children. There were too few left these days to be taken.

Fourteen now. It was the worst thing that could have happened. Especially now.

He hugged Baelfire closer to him as Hordor nodded at the soldier who had a hand on her shoulder. "Take her!" he commanded. Immediately the knight threw her mother, who had been moving ever closer to her daughter away. She screamed as they were separated. "She'll ride with me," Hordor insisted.

"No!" her mother shouted as she was hoisted up behind Hordor. He watched in horror, unable to take his eyes off the spectacle even as he felt Baelfire curl up beside him, hiding his eyes against his chest as he had when he was young. Fourteen. This couldn't be happening. "You can't have her!" the girl's father protested.

It happened fast. So fast he hadn't even had time to register that it was coming. Morraine's mother, who he knew had lost three sons to the war already, pulled a knife from her belt and lunged. The air changed quickly. There was energy in it as the girl's parents were suddenly stopped in their tracks and began to clutch their necks and make choking sounds. In almost no time at all, they were on their knees, submissive. He didn't need to look around to know the source; everyone already knew it, including the parents. Out in the field, on the same black horse he always appeared on, in the same clothes he always wore, was the cloaked figure.

The Dark One. His arm was raised, and he could see the dead air around his outstretched hand shimmer, reacting to the magic that held the girl's parents at bay.

"The Dark One seems to think I can," Hordor commented as they both began to fall to the ground completely. For a moment, he expected that he might finally give in, that the Dark One might finally kill someone in their village, but Hordor finally gave the smallest of nods to the masked man, and it was in that very second that both fell to the ground, taking in deep gulps of air as Hordor took advantage of their weakened state and rode off with their daughter.

"My birthday's in three days!" Bae exclaimed turning to him. "They'll come for me in three days!"

"We'll find a way," he assured his son without missing a beat. "We'll…we'll find a way."

But as he spoke, the girl's mother let out a terrible scream. The villagers rushed to help them, but he already knew that it was too late. There was nothing to be done for the mother who had just lost her fourth and last child to this dreadful war. Maybe more troops would have made a difference when he was in the war, but now he was convinced that it would do nothing but postpone their true fate. He cast his eyes down the road that the soldiers had disappeared down, the road that led to the place where the sky seemed to glow redder each and every day.

He couldn't leave Baelfire to this fate. The time had come. They no longer had years to figure this out. Only three days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally our first familiar chapter! From here, things slow down a bit in this fiction. We went through many years very quickly and now we're going to go through only a couple of years very slowly. But it all starts with this episode!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments and your questions on the last chapter, I'm glad you liked it and I'm always happy to answer what I can! I'm very glad that we've finally gotten into this episode as it seems like everything important happens very soon! I'm excited to see if you like how I handled things as we move through the rest of this fiction. On to the next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	8. Less Than Half a Plan

He'd always believed that they would need to be careful about leaving, that when they made their daring escape from Hordor and the Dark One and the Duke it would have been so perfectly planned that when it came time to execute said plan he would see nothing but bright light up ahead.

This was nothing like he thought it was. He had taken Baelfire inside after his own proclamation, but the lack of doors or windows this time of year meant that he could still hear everything being said outside, every wail that came from the girl's parents. There was no time to plan. There was no time to decide, there was no time to make sure that everything was covered. The Duke had lowered the age to fight in this town to fourteen and Baelfire would be fourteen in only two more sunsets. The time for waiting had passed, and now they were at the time to act. They had to get out of town and even out of the Kingdom and they had to do it quickly and as quietly as possible, right now.

Baelfire was confused at first. He did as he was told, but he could see in his eyes that he didn't think this plan held any more weight than he did. It was just going to have to be what it was. They'd go to town first, see if there were any ships they could either sneak onto or who would take them away and if not then they would run. He'd walked hundreds of miles once before on his leg to reach his son, he could do it again to save him. And as for the life that awaited them when they arrived to wherever they ended up? It wouldn't be much of a life, he already knew that and despaired at the fact that it would probably be little better than when he had camped in the woods with his own father and worried about food night after night. But it would be better for Bae, if only by a fraction, because that little life with his son would certainly be better than Baelfire dying at war. And he was nothing like his father. He woudn't gamble away Bae's dinner, when he said he'd go to get a job he would actually go to get a job. Who would hire a lame man? He didn't know, but he didn't need to at the moment. As he rushed about the house, gathering coins from the stashes he had around, he realized he was getting ahead of himself. What was important now was to get away from here and cross the border as fast as possible. After that, who knew, his aunts had once said that he could spin for kings and queens, maybe one day he could make good on that prediction.

They made their move when the sun began to go down, at a time of night when he might normally make a delivery in town. He placed a traveling cloak over Baelfire for warmth, gave him the lantern to carry, put a bag of wool over his arm and the pair of them were off to town. It wasn't much, but then it couldn't look like much. If they did encounter the Dark One in the woods, he wanted Bae to be able to run easily. Not to mention, if they packed and took bags of clothes with them, then it might arouse the suspicion of the neighbors. He would like to think that even if they were able to put two and two together, they wouldn't call on Hordor, but he trusted no one in this time. The last thing he needed was for those girl's parents to feel jealousy toward him for rescuing his boy and thwart their escape just because they believed it was "fair". It sounded cruel and heartless, but he'd known people who did a lot less.

"Ah, cheer up Bae," he commented when he looked down at his son and saw the frown on his face. He was keeping pace with him, but obviously wasn't happy about it. Nerves he understood, he felt them as well, they were on a path to the unknown, what lay ahead was mysterious, and as a parent, that was terrifying. He didn't want to leave this place; it was the only place he'd ever really lived, the place his aunts were buried, the placed he'd built his home, where his son was born…

But he'd do anything to keep his son by his side. And so, terrified as he was, he was willing to do it.

He tried his best to make it sound fun for Bae, like it was an adventure. He told him half-true stories, stories about when he camped out and how he managed to survive. He left out the crucial details, about his father and what he had been doing out there in the first place, and the tale of what happened to his ankle…those details weren't important. What was important was that Baelfire believed him and trusted him on this journey. It didn't seem to work the way he'd planned. Bae listened, of course, he always listened, but he could tell that he still wasn't enthusiastic about it all.

"It feels wrong to run away," he commented as they walked, his voice wistful and sad. He couldn't imagine how difficult this was for him. Bae had never been outside the village, not in all his thirteen, nearly fourteen years of life. He knew it was hard on him, but better he be miserable than here when the sun rose in two days.

"It's worse to die, son," he insisted. "I'm not having you taken away to the Ogres' war."

"Alms for the poor?!"

The only thing preventing him from being surprised and jumping ten feet into the air was that he'd seen the light of this sad creature while he was several feet away.

"Alms for the poor?" he begged once more, stepping close and cutting them off from the rest of their journey.

It wasn't a shock, he was probably a runaway like they were, the poor tended to litter this road at night, and he was just grateful that it wasn't The Dark One who had found him. He didn't usually give to the poor, in fact, he preferred not to look at them at all if he could avoid it, simply because long ago it reminded him of his father and lately it seemed like an omen of what he was destined to become. But, since they were about to be equals in this life…

"Yes," he breathed reaching into his bag to collect a few of the coins he had for him.

"Oh! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." They weren't rich, what they had would buy the pair of them only food, but he could spare one of his own meals for the man. And, hopefully, if someone did question the beggar about whether or not he'd seen them, he would return his kind gesture and keep silent.

Satisfied with his treat, the beggar melted away, and he and Baelfire continued on their path down the road to town. They had to keep moving.

"Are you sure there's no other way?" Bae asked when they were moving again.

He shook his head. Oh, how he wished there was another way. But in two days?! This was the only way. "Oh, I can't lose you, Bae," he explained. "You're all I've got left, son. You don't understand what war is like, what they do to you." He had all too many memories of just how-

There was a sound behind them, a sound that he recognized all too well and made his heart leap into his throat. It was the sound of horse's hooves. Soldiers! Hordor!

"Quick! Hide!" he ordered shoving Bae aside to where he could hide! They couldn't find him with Baelfire! Not now, not when he was so close to his birthday! But Bae was slow, he resisted and couldn't, or wouldn't, move his feet fast enough. "In the ditch! Hide! Go, go! Go!"

"Stop right there!" he heard Hordor call.

It was too late. His body was suddenly hot with nerves, and he felt sweat break out in an effort to cool is skin in the already chilly night air. He could already feel himself begin to shake with fear. A story. They were going to need a story! Quick. He'd thought of one before he left the village but hadn't accounted for Baelfire being so visible. Would it work with him by his side?

He held tight to his boy as Hordor and two other soldiers, also on horseback, approached them. "What are you doing in the King's realm?" Hordor questioned. He prayed, he hoped that meant that in the darkness the flame wasn't enough to reveal who he really was! Was it possible that they could pass themselves off as visitors and go free?

"We have some wool to sell at the fair at Longbourne," he lied. He was impressed at just how calm he'd managed to utter the words. Perhaps that was what sealed their fate, maybe that was why Hordor was squinting at him through the darkness. He sounded too rehearsed, too calm. Or maybe he just recognized his voice, either way, he knew that he was aware he was lying.

"I know you, don't I?" he questioned getting off his horse. He took a step back, closer to the trees, trying his best to stay in the shadows, but as he moved closer he knew it was impossible. In another step or two, he'd recognize him. "What was your name? Hm?" There it was. He'd cast his eyes down but not before he had a chance to see the sneer betrayed him. At that moment Hordor knew exactly who he was. But would he know about Baelfire? Without the planning or the villages paperwork? Would he know how old his boy was? He took another step back, dragging Bae with him. But what good would it do?

"Spindleshanks?" he taunted. "Threadwhistle? Hobblefoot?"

"His name's Rumpelstiltskin!" Bae insisted, striding forward and puffing out his chest proudly. He'd never been so terrified of a noise in his life, not even when he'd heard he was to go into battle.

"Hush, boy!" he begged. He didn't understand how vital a name could be, how damning.

"Rumpel-ah, the man who ran," Hordor teased. If there was any doubt before that he didn't' know who they were there was no doubt in his mind now. He knew he was the traitor. "Is this your boy? How old is he?" No, he couldn't bring himself to answer. "What's your name?" he finally asked of Baelfire in his silence. He prayed he'd keep quiet this time, all the while knowing his boy. This was impossible.

"I'm Baelfire, and I'm thirteen," he declared fearlessly. Oh, he wanted to melt right into the ground and take Bae with him. No. They'd been so close. A clever lie would have done it, but the truth too easily condemned them.

"When's your birthday?" he went on.

"In two days' time."

"Hush, boy!" he snapped. But it was too late. He'd already given away the most precious bit of information they had. Under different circumstances, he might have admired his son's bravery. At this moment, it was taking everything he had not to dissolve into tears of despair and failure.

"Did you teach him how to run as well, Rumpelstiltskin?" Hordor questioned. It was that same interrogating voice he'd had long ago in the war. It hadn't changed a bit and he flinched at the sound of it, at the information that he might let slip loose, information he didn't want Baelfire to have.

"Did he tell you?" he pressed further. He knew the questions were meant for Bae, but he didn't stop looking at him. His tongue felt thick and it felt as though there was a rock in his throat preventing him from stopping Hordor. "Did he tell you how he ran, and the ogres turned the tide of the battle, and all the others were killed, and he returned home to a wife who could not bear the sight of him?"

"Please…" he begged, tightening the grip he had on Bae's shoulder. He'd have given anything for him to take the words back, for Bae to declare he didn't believe him, for just one moment when he could explain to him that wasn't really how it had all happened! Bae loved his mother, mourned her still, he didn't need to hear about all this, no matter what he remembered from his childhood. But Hordor showed no signs of wanting to stop. "You see, women do not like to be married to cowards."

"Please don't speak to my boy like that," he managed to beg, but his voice was nothing more than a whimper. His body shook with equal parts fear and rage as he held on tight to Bae's cloak. All his life he'd worked to keep Bae from knowing all that. In one night, it was all gone. He felt naked before him, and smaller than he'd ever felt in all his life. He was powerless to stop a man such as Hordor from taking everything that mattered to him.

"It's treason to avoid service," Hordor declared loud enough for the others to hear him. "Take the boy now."

"No, no, no, no!" he begged before he could walk back up the hill. He was yelling now, his begging finally clear, it took the threat of losing Baelfire to bring it out in him, but he had to try! He couldn't lose Bae! And maybe, unexpected as this was, there wasn't time for the Dark One to be called, maybe they could still work this out! Maybe they could still get away! If not, he may as well kill him before he took Bae away. If he did, he was dead anyway.

"What do you want?" he questioned. Everything had a price, people had a price, what would the cost of Bae be, for his silence?!

"What do I want?" Hordor questioned with a sneer. He held Bae close as he rounded on them once more. "You have no money, no influence, no land, no title, no power. The truth is, all you really have is fealty. Kiss my boot."

Kiss my boot? What did that mean? What was that? A turn of phrase? He looked around at the soldiers with them, utterly confused, but none of them offered any answers. What did he want?

"I don't understand-"

"You asked my price. Kiss my boot."

He had been shaking ever since he heard the sound of the horses behind them, but now he was quaking so hard he wasn't quite sure how he was managing to stand. It wasn't a turn of phrase. It was the simplest of orders. He wanted him to get down on his knees and grovel, kiss the filthiest, lowest part of him to show loyalty. There was no greater embarrassment than to perform such an action. And in front of Bae? Unthinkable! But how was he to say no if that was a price? It was so simple and yet so costly. He had nothing if not his dignity, did he mean to take that from him too? All because he'd injured himself in war?

"Not in front of my boy," he begged, his voice trembling from the tears he was holding back. Maybe they could work something out-

"Kiss my boot!" Hordor roared reaching for his sword.

He didn't think about what he was doing; he couldn't. The noise alone was enough to make him fall to the ground on his hands and knees and crawl forward to kiss the disgusting leather over his foot. He tried not to hear the laughter of the man above him or the laughter of the soldiers that followed. He tried not to picture Baelfire's face as he did as he was told. He just bowed, he trembled and shook, he submitted and waited for-

Suddenly the foot he'd kissed aimed a kick into his chest and he rolled down the little incline gasping for breath.

"Papa!" Bae called after him. His chest hurt, his leg hurt more, but the little pride he'd had left did not, as Baelfire propped him up he felt it drain away completely. He felt specs of dirt and dust from the ground hang upon his lips as the smell of the leather seemed to cling to his nose, making it impossible to forget what he'd had to do. The only good thing he saw, was Hordor get back on his horse and ride away with the other soldiers. It was good, but not good enough, for they rode in the direction they would need to head in order to escape.

They'd never make it out of the town now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A familiar scene and in my mind probably one of the saddest and most difficult to write. I think it's part of being human that we don't like to look upon people in their worst state, we don't like to feel like we're adding to their humiliation, that's why so many of us turn away from the homeless we see on the street corners. To me the idea that someone could take that humiliation and make a spectacle of it as they take advantage of such a difficult situation is unthinkable. To me it's one of the worst non-violent crimes that we can commit and that makes this chapter very hard to examine because the instinct is to look away. But I think this is probably one of the most important chapters because this scene becomes such a motivation to Rumple throughout his life. It is arguably his lowest point. He's lost his aunts, his money, his property, and now he's lost control over his history and even his son. We have, with this chapter, successfully left this character with nothing. And it doesn't feel so great.
> 
> Thank you RolfB and MissBansheeAbby for your comments. I appreciate every word and all the compliments as we all struggle to get through these more difficult of chapters. An end to it all is coming. We all know that, we just have to keep trucking! Peace and Happy Reading!


	9. Pity Party

He knew all the things he was; a spinner, an adulterer, lame, weak, scum, unloved, unwanted, and useless. He'd always known what he was, but for the first time in his life he felt it too. He felt lowly, powerless to stop what was coming. He could still taste the leather of Hordor's boot in his mouth, was still trembling when he gasped at the sound of something in bushes coming toward them. At first, it appeared to be a great cloaked figure that he took for the Dark One and he pushed himself away as best he could as he prepared to take Bae by force…but then the hood was cast aside, and he saw only a familiar, yet strange face.

"No, no, no! No! It's okay," the man hissed coming closer. He could barely hear him over his own whimpering. It was the beggar he'd given money to only moments ago. "Let me help you. Let me help you home," he whispered gently, reaching for his hand to get him up.

"Thank you, old man," he heard Bae mutter calmly as he moved to get his cane for him. He only tried to shake the beggar away. He knew why he was helping, and it wasn't fair for him to think there was something more to offer him for helping.

"I don't have any money to pay you," he cried.

"I can think of another way," he insisted holding tight to keep him upright. "You just feed me whatever you can spare, and I'll find a way to be your benefactor. Come."

Benefactor? How was he supposed to be his benefactor? He was only a beggar, and Hordor had just said he was interested in money, weath, property, or titles. Power. What power would he have for him? But food…they had food at home. He hadn't wanted to take any of it with them, fearing it might be suspicious, and since he'd just picked up and gone it was all there just waiting for them to come back. And his chest did hurt, and he didn't like the idea of traveling out here alone with Baelfire and nothing but a broken body to defend him, especially when the Dark One might be around. What good would he be against such a creature? He couldn't even defend himself against a soldier. Another person with them in the night might be a good thing to have. There was strength in numbers, though he wasn't sure his number counted for much.

The three of them made their way back to their home silently and without further incident. He wanted to do something, he needed to do something, needed to feel like he was capable in some way! But Bae insisted that he sit down as he and the beggar started a fire in the hearth and set some stew to warm over it. Finally, the begger handed Baelfire an empty bucket and sent him out to the well to fill it with water. The moment he was out the door he sat down before him. He flinched when his hand came close.

"Hey, hey, I…I just want to check, okay?" he eased gently. "I just want to be sure, nothing is broken." The man pulled his shirt aside and began to prod about his chest and collar just where Hordor had kicked him. He hated it, but not because it was painful, which it was. Every time he hit a tender spot he had the urge to jump up and scurry into the corner. No, it wasn't the poking that made him hate this, it was the fact that the man kept looking at him, and for that matter, touching him like he wasn't a man but rather a wounded animal to be cared for. He was suddenly very glad Milah had not lived to see this day. Had she been younger it would have killed her and if she had been the older version he remembered…she wouldn't have been able to bear the sight of him. Hordor had that much right.

"You'll have a bruise just here," the man mentioned, lightly tapping the place where he'd been kicked. "But you'll be fine otherwise. Nothing feels broken. Lucky for you; I think I've more fat on me than you do!"

He understood that he meant that comment to be funny, but he wasn't capable of laughing, he was barely capable of not sitting down at his wheel and weeping at his failed attempts to get his son to safety. There was nothing funny in all of this to laugh at as far as he was concerned.

"Thank you," he nodded as he set his shirt right. "I…I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name."

The man only smirked, and he noticed that his eyes became foggy and distant almost instantly. "I didn't give it. It's been a long time since anyone asked me my name. Or called me by it for that matter."

Suddenly silence stretched between the two of them, silence that made him consider if their situations were any better or worse. He had a home and Bae, but little food and security. This man at least seemed well fed. He didn't have to worry about taxes, but he had no one to call him by his name. Would that be his fate when Bae was gone.

"Names are precious things," he muttered quickly, keeping his tears locked away in front of him. "My aunts always told me they were the most important thing in the world."

The distant look faded from the man's eyes, and suddenly a smile spread across his face. "Indeed, they are."

Bae returned before he could ask him for his name and with the stew heated he managed to get the two bowls he and Baelfire usually used and fill them to the brim. One for Bae, one for their new friend.

"Papa, don't you want any?"

"Nah, that's okay Bae…you eat up."

Bae didn't question his lack of appetite, and neither did the man though he noticed he did give him an odd glance. The truth was he couldn't have eaten if he'd tried. His stomach was in knots, and he didn't think it ever would stop at this point. His boy was safe at home eating and two days before his fourteenth birthday, that was the worst thing for him.

"Off to bed Bae."

"Shouldn't we talk about…"

"In the morning," he muttered holding the blanket to his own bed out for him. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

Bae looked between the two of them but didn't argue, he rarely did, and got into his father's bed. Like usual, it took him almost no time at all until he was asleep. He knew because he hadn't been able to take his eyes off of him from the time he laid down. The beggar could have stolen everything from their home, and he would never have known it. He just couldn't look away from the mop of brown hair occupying his bed.

Two more days. Two more days to figure out how to rescue him from the clutches of the King's Army and the Ogres. But…

No money, the soldiers looking for them to make their escape, he had to figure something out, but every plan that came to mind seemed to have a roadblock of some kind. In each, he was missing something vital. Resources, money, land, privilege, power, friends…he had none of the things that were necessary for escape. His one job was to protect his son, how was he supposed to do that?

"You're thinking about all the ways you failed tonight."

At the beggar's words, he managed to tear his eyes off of his boy and look back at the man in rags across from him. He'd been staring at Baelfire, but it seemed the beggar had been staring at him.

"You're thinking about all the ways tonight went wrong and not all the ways it went right."

"Went right?" he scoffed, choking on his own tears. "Nothing went right."

"You met me. That's luckier than you know."

He didn't want to insult the man, but he couldn't see how meeting the beggar made him lucky, or how that might outweigh the events of the day. So instead he sighed and took the man's empty bowl back to the hearth to refill it. He may as well, food was one thing they had for now, and it wouldn't exactly keep for years on end. He would trade it all for Bae's life in a heartbeat.

"Another day gone," he commented absentmindedly filling the bowl. "They'll be no fleeing now."

"No," he agreed in a whisper as he sat back down and put his cane away. "You need to find another way. You need to choose a different path."

"Choose?" he whispered back. Clearly, this man, had been on the streets too long or never had any responsibility the way that he did and didn't understand. Choices were something that rich men and powerful men had the privilege of having. Someone like him, a coward and a cripple, a mere spinner, had nothing but what he'd been given and this…this wasn't much more than the beggar had. He had to see that. They were more alike than they were different. "What choice do I have?" he questioned of him.

"Everyone has a choice," he blanched in disbelief. But he didn't understand, too much time in town and begging on the road or perhaps traveling town to town and never being here for too long meant he didn't fully understand who he was or what he was.

"I'm the town coward," he cried. "The only choice I have is which corner to hide in." He felt all the emotions he'd had on the road rise up in him again, the anger, the frustration, the humiliation, the sadness, and this time he didn't stop them. He couldn't. Bae was asleep. There was no use trying to wade through the mire in his mind, he may as well admit it. The only thing was that admitting it made it real and if it was real then…there really was nothing he could do to save his son.

"I'm lame, friendless…" he choked out as tears flowed. "The only thing I've got is my boy. And they're going to take him away from me. If they take him away, I would truly, truly become dust."

Maybe the Seer had been right all those years ago. Maybe if he had stayed and fought in that battle things would be different, Bae would be here with his mother, living peacefully knowing his father died to make the world a better place. Instead, they were about to be separated. His boy would die without a father by his side, and he would have nothing to his name but a small town talent with a spinning wheel — what a waste of a life.

"Not if you have power!" the beggar insisted quietly like it was the answer to everything. Had he not heard a word he'd said? Had he not been listening? He was lame! The town coward! What power could he possibly acquire in two days that might change his fate?

"You may as well say diamonds."

"Get a hold of yourself!" the beggar snapped at him. "Think. Why do you think that someone as powerful as the Dark One would work for a useless fool like the Duke of the Frontlands?"

Well…he didn't know. No one knew. Not even the sailor who had told him about the Dark One all those years ago. The Dark One, his origins, his motives…it was possibly one of the greatest mysteries in the midst of all this bloodshed. Did this mean…did the beggar know the answer?

"Tell me."

"The Duke has the Dark One in thrall," he shared almost angrily. "He's enslaved him with the power of a mystical dagger and on the blade is written a name…the true name of the Dark One. If you steal the dagger, then you would control the Dark One yourself. And then no one would be able to take your son away from you."

He was a slave. Held captive by the Duke, just like everyone in this town was. But…but for him to take a slave, as his father had been a slave, as he had nearly been…no! To do to this man, this Dark One, what the duke was doing…no, it…it sounded wrong. And if the Dark One was as powerful as he seemed it also seemed like a death sentence in the end.

"To keep a man like the Dark One as a slave? No, I…I-I can't. I'd be terrified." He was smart, he'd heard stories of slaves that killed their masters in the night while they slept and this Dark One was no ordinary man. He had magic, power beyond belief! He wouldn't put Baelfire at risk like that, he couldn't.

"Then, perhaps, instead of controlling the power, you need to take it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Zoso, such a good disguise and such a tempting offer. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, I have to say. Not because I enjoy seeing Rumple in pain but because it actually translated well to page and I really like writing for Zoso. I like writing most of his chapters, they're always interesting. I hope you'll like him.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you RolfB for your wonderful comments and thoughts on the last chapter as well as the congrats at moving forward. In a fiction series this massive I have to take what I can get. As far as this chapter goes I know there isn't too much here that is new, but I am hoping that like me you will enjoy Zoso, I hope the framing I added to the chapter seems good and natural. For me, when I can't remember if what's written is a scene or my stuff I always feel like I managed to get it right, but of course you are always the ultimate judges. Peace and Happy Reading!


	10. The Idea of Power

All it had taken was for one little statement to turn his life on it's head, one little suggestion that put a small fire of hope deep down in his soul, hope like he hadn't had in ages! Don't control the power of the Dark One, take it for yourself.

He listened for the better part of the night as the beggar spun a tale and a plan for him, as he created for him choices that he hadn't had before. The dagger was kept in the Duke's castle not far from here, in the tapestry room. It was concealed behind one of those tapestries. If he managed to take the dagger and summon the Dark One, simply by calling out to him with the dagger in hand, then he would hold him in his thrall. He could command him to stand still as he used the blade to kill him and take the powers for himself.

Finally, he'd gotten to a part that made his stomach turn over. Up until that statement, he'd been leaning in greedily listening to every word but at the acknowledgement of what it might take to grasp power like that…it was the incident with Fendrake the Healer all over again.

"Kill him?! No, y-y-you don't understand. I've never-"

"Listen!" the beggar hissed moving closer and grabbing the collar of his shirt to give him a little jolt. "The Dark One has lived a long time, too long held captive to those you both despise. I know for a fact that death would be considered a gift to him."

He knew he meant for the words to be freeing, something that should have given him the confidence to do as he said but in listening to his reassurances, he was suddenly struck by another question, one raised by an odd thought he hadn't considered until now.

"How do you know all this?" he asked skeptically. For all he knew this man was just playing a prank on him for food, or setting him up to be arrested, or killed by the Dark One, or worse…deliver Bae right into their hands.

The beggar chuckled and released the grip he had on his shirt. "Haven't you noticed the Dark One doesn't seem to live anywhere?" he questioned back. "You think the Duke keeps him up in that castle of his? Gives him a nice room to stay in? No! He sleeps out under the stars with the rest of us. He's well known to the poor beggars and urchins like me."

"You know the Dark One…" he breathed, his eyes going wide. To him, the Dark One was no more than a monster that lived in the shadows, the fact that he might be a man, one that had a face and sought the company of others, was an inspiring revelation and one that man sense to him. The Dark One had to live somewhere. Where else would the beggar have gotten so much detail but from his own mouth? But then…wasn't there a better way?

"W-wouldn't it be simpler to ask him for help then?"

The beggar shook his head. "As long as the dagger is in the Duke's possession, he can want to help with every fiber of his being, but he won't be able to save your son, not if the Duke commands he serve. He's not a bad guy, Rumpelstiltskin, he is only as dark as those like the Duke have made him.

"Take the dagger, free the Dark One, save your son, and you can lead the ogres off the battlefield and far away from here. You can spare the entire kingdom, be the most powerful man in it! In the end, it would be Hordor begging to kiss your boots!"

The fire of hope within him flared with the thought of that. Hordor, the man responsible for so much of his misery, on his knees begging for forgiveness and mercy as he kissed his shoes. Oh, he'd do just about anything to make that image real.

"H-how would I go about stealing the dagger?" he questioned. He was interested, beyond interested actually, but he was also aware that it would be no simple task. The Duke's castle was well fortified. "You said it was in the Duke's castle. Those walls are made from the thickest of stone and guarded by well-trained soldiers."

"Yes…" the beggar whispered with a nod. "He spared no expense in building the walls. He probably never dreamed that fire might rain down from above…"

When he woke in his chair the next morning, he found that the beggar was gone, but in his place he'd left behind a plan, instructions in his head that were far more than an idea, it was a plan. Baelfire was still asleep in his bed. Ordinarily he would stay around the house and fix breakfast but his birthday was tomorrow, and for this plan to be successful there was no time to waste.

He set off to work with far more determination that he felt he'd ever had, even before the war. Perhaps it was the determination of a parent egging him on, maybe it was the determination of someone who was hanging every hope and dream on one plan, he didn't care. He didn't care about how foolish it was or that the beggar could have been lying to him, or the long-term consequences of his actions. All he saw was life for Bae, and that was all that truly mattered now.

Fire. In order for the beggars plan to be successful, he was going to need lots of fire. And a simple spark wouldn't do it was going to have to be the kind of raging inferno that was uncontrollable. And he'd only have the day to make it work as tomorrow was Bae's birthday. He had a plan. He took stalk of everything he had, everything that could help him, all the wool that was left in his house, then set off for the butcher in town. Sheep's fat. The butcher would have it, and he'd need it. It was something he hadn't heard about since he was a boy, but he knew that it was effective in lighting fires and in keeping them burning and burning hot. It wasn't an easy task he had ahead of him, especially with a bad leg, but it was the only option he had, and it was impossible to refuse; otherwise his son would pay the price. Bae was awake when he returned home, laden with as much fat as the butcher had.

"Papa, what-"

"Go chop wood Bae and set to making a fire out on the spit quickly as possible, not a minute to lose."

"But why?"

"I'll tell you once the fire is kindled. Go, son!"

The desperation in his voice must have been what propelled Bae to take off into the woods at such a fast pace. He listened to his father, and the pair of them worked through the afternoon, getting the spit ready and kindling the fire below the pot he poured the sheep's fat into.

It was typically warm this time of year, so he was aware of just how crazy his neighbors thought he was when the fire was blazing. Still, he didn't pause to consider their reaction. He brought as much wool as he could outside and began to work it over long branches he'd had Bae find for him. He done a good job at keeping his boy busy. He didn't want to burden him with the plan that the beggar had laid out for him, but he was naturally curious, always had been, as they worked throughout the day he told him little bits and pieces of what was going on, his need to break into the Duke's castle as well as his plan for how to do it. Bae didn't understand, and he didn't expect him to based on the little information he'd given to him, but he did trust him. He was a good boy and did as he was told even if he thought he was as crazy as the neighbors did. He didn't care. In fact, if this worked, by this time tomorrow, he would be thanking him. But only if the fire stayed as hot as it was.

He checked the metal pot he'd put the sheep's fat in. It was still more of a lumpy solid than a liquid. He looked up at the sky. It was growing dark. They'd need to be heading out soon for this to work. They needed to hurry.

"Keep that fire good and stoked, Bae. The sheep's fat needs to be liquid. And get that wool good and soaked."

"Why are we doing this, Papa?" Bae asked. "This is good wool we can spin and sell."

"These are our keys to the castle, son. And once I'm inside…there's something I have to take."

"What do you need to take?" he questioned, drawing out more and more of his plan. He supposed, at this point there was no use hiding it all from Bae.

"That old beggar? He told me a fine tale – about the Duke and his magical dagger."

"What does it do?"

This was the part he had hoped not to have to tell Bae about yet, this was the reason he hadn't brought up the dagger yet. He didn't want to burden Bae, but if this worked, there would be no need to hide it from him. He'd find out sooner or later, he may as well find out from him.

"If I own that dagger, I control the Dark One. If I kill the Dark One with the dagger, I take his powers." He gave Bae a playful pat on the arm, something fun to let him know that all was going to be well that this was a good thing for them. But it didn't stop Bae from getting that look on his face of utter shock.

"By gods' name…"

"Imagine me with those powers! Can you imagine me with those powers, Bae?" he rambled on quickly. It was going to be messy work, and it wasn't something he was looking forward to doing. He'd never wanted to harm another man, much less kill him, but it had to be done, and he didn't want his boy to have to focus on it any more than necessary. He had to keep the attention on the positives. "I could get to redeem myself. I could turn it towards good. I'll save all the children of the Frontlands, not just you, my boy."

"I'd love to see that," Bae stated. "But if the law says I'm to fight, I…I can fight."

This again! He thought they'd put this to bed finally. He couldn't fight! It wasn't fighting it was dying. How could Bae not understand this yet! How could he not be afraid of dying? It may be a law, but laws weren't always right, and sometimes it took powerful men to fix them. This law was wrong. He could fix it when this was done. He could save hundreds of children, not just his own. There was no comparison as to which was the better plan.

"No, no, no! The law doesn't want you to fight, son. The law wants you to die. That's not battle, that's sacrifice, son. You look at that red in the sky," he turned to point him toward what they'd been watching for the last few years, the future they'd seen creeping toward them, ominous in the clouds. They'd heard the cannons themselves. He had to understand why that was. "That's not the…the fires of the battlefields. That's the blood of our people, son. It's the blood of children. The blood of children like you. I mean, what sane person would want to get involved with that?" He didn't want to scare his son, but maybe in this case, a little bit of fear was exactly what he needed to help him see the light and forge forward.

"So, it's true…" he stated while his back was turned. He looked over at him and saw his face looked ashen and terrified. His eyes were wide. He looked fearful. But what had he heard that he'd just confirmed for him?

"What?"

"It's true. It's true you ran."

He felt his heart stop at the accusation, at the truth. He'd wanted him to learn, but he hadn't wanted him to learn that, not from the Duke's puppet, not from anyone but him, who could explain properly. He hadn't run, and it wasn't possible that he, one man, could be responsible for the defeat they'd suffered that day on the battlefield. It hadn't been running. Baelfire had to understand that. He shook his head.

"I had no choice, son."

"And Mother?" he questioned before he could continue. "Did she leave you like the knight said? You told me she was dead."

He cast his eyes away, still ashamed at his actions on the ship that day. He knew the rumors that had floated around town, but he was happy at least that they weren't true. Milah had been taken by pirates, and though he didn't know the details of her fate, he knew that if she hadn't come home to Bae yet, then she never would.

"She is dead," he whispered making himself busy once more with the torch he was working on so Bae wouldn't see his tears, wouldn't see his shame. That was a truth that he couldn't live with if Bae ever found out. The way he figured, she probably hadn't lasted more than a year or two at sea with those brigands. And he knew...that was his fault. It was a burden he would carry with him all the days of his life.

Bae moved, he came around the fire and sat down on a barrel he'd been using when his ankle got to be too much and thanked all the stars in the sky he hadn't reached out to touch him over his mother because he didn't know if he'd be able to keep himself together if he did that.

"So, what do we need to do?" he questioned after a long pause.

He could have cried at his question. His compliance was the greatest thing to have happened yet. Instead of thinking about the past it was best to move forward, the save Bae, to save the entire Kingdom from these creatures! This was his redemption, for the war and for Milah. He couldn't save her, the best he could do for her now was prove himself by saving their son.

So he lowered himself down onto something secure until he was eye level with Bae and explained. "The Duke's castle is made of stone, but the floors and the rafters are made of wood.

Bae's brows came together in confusion. "Why does that matter?"

He smiled and wondered if that was the look he'd had on his face last night when the beggar had explained it to him. "Because wood burns," he whispered.

It was so simple, how could it not work?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the great plan they had! A great plan indeed, so great that I wanted to dig a little bit more into that night and whatever it would have been that Zoso said to him, how he tempted him to do what he did. Someone asked in a previous comment if part of Zoso's reason for doing this was to help Rumple and you know...I'm really not sure what his motive is. We saw so little of him so it's hard to say what his motivations were. I'd like to think some of it was that. I think more of it was that he just didn't want the job anymore, but I'd love to think that he chose his victim wisely for lots of reasons.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I'm always happy to hear you think additions are good or meaningful! I'm hoping that you'll think the same thing about some of the upcoming chapters. Peace and Happy Reading!


	11. One Man Invasion

The time had come. The wool at the end of each stick was properly soaked in sheep's fat. The torches were gathered up. A lantern was lit. And he and Bae made their way silently through the forest to the Duke's castle. He had the advantage of visiting often prior to this moment, because he had sold some thread and yarn to some of the ladies for their mending and weaving. The Duke had fine and expensive taste, and he supposed that that should have honored him in a way, however it was difficult to feel honor when he was paid so little for his work — but being lowly as he was had given him a wonderful opportunity. No one noticed him as they should. He was a lame man, and so the soldiers had never truly seen him as a threat, and on several occasions, he'd been able to get good glimpses Duke's castle and some of its comings and goings. Never before had he thought his observations would pay off in this way though.

"Where do we set the fire, Papa?"

From the treeline he looked around, thankful it was only his leg that was broken and not his eyesight. It was late, nearly midnight, many would be asleep in their beds, and the fire would catch them off guard, the few who were on patrol were not around this place, however. And if what he hoped was going to happen would, then he would have a clear path to the dagger.

"What do you see in front of you, Bae?"

His son paused as he looked at the sight round the back of the castle. "Stone?" he questioned.

"Not just stone," he corrected. "Hay. On the other side of that wall is the stable. They store the extra hay and the muck from the stalls here until it can be collected and carted away. In this heat, it'll be perfectly dry."

"But the animals!"

"That's the best part of the plan, son," he assured him. When the fire starts around this way, there will be chaos for a time. A few moments when they'll try to put it out, but when they can't they'll let the animals go, those doors will open as their handlers will scramble to get them all rounded up and the castle residents will evacuate at the other end. By the time they've begun evacuations the roof on this side will have burned and no one will be watching the doors. That's how I'll make my way in. I'll find the tapestry room, take the dagger, then the powers of the Dark One. This war will be over by noon tomorrow Bae you'll see!"

"But…" all at once Baelfire launched himself into his arms with such force he nearly tipped over and dropped the torches. The embrace was tight, rib-cracking, so tight that in the end, he voluntarily dropped the torches and wrapped his arms around his boy in turn.

"Hey," he whispered as he smoothed back the hair on his head. "Hey, hey, hey…" His son was still a child, still a boy, but this particular action reminded him of long ago, when he was smaller and would crawl into his bed at night afraid of the shadows or the cannon fire he heard. "It's alright, Bae," he assured him before kissing the top of his head. "It's alright…I'm going to be just fine."

Bae looked up at him, and even in the dark moonless cover, he could see the tears shining in his face. "Are you sure, Papa? Are you sure this is our only option."

His own heart hammered and suddenly keeping the smile on his face became a chore. He was a coward, and all day he'd been distracted by that fact by merely keeping busy, but suddenly, here with his son, the truth had a moment to catch up with him. He felt his spine curl and had the urge to run, to hide in the woods with Bae and not emerge until it was safe. But he couldn't let himself. Not tonight. He was afraid; afraid of getting caught, afraid of being burned, afraid of the dagger and the Dark One and murder, and about a dozen more things.

But he was afraid of losing Bae more.

Forward was the only path he could take now. Even if he knew it was still a coward's path in a way. He was about to turn a cowardly path into a heroic one.

"It'll be fine, Bae," he insisted once more. "It'll all turn out alright in the end. You'll see…" He knelt down to pick up the torches he'd cast aside and Bae retrieved the lantern at his feet. It was time. They went first to the farthest pile of hay, the one that was the freshest and farther away from the stable and low roof. He figured it would take the longest to catch and burn into a blaze. He took one of the torches they'd prepared touched it to the lantern's light, and watched as it erupted in flames. Fire burning, he carefully stuck it into the pile of hay, certain he didn't do it too quickly that he snuffed it out, then watched as the pile of hay exploded in red and orange flames that reached high into the sky. They gave off sparks like he hadn't imagined and worried that this wasn't the pile to start with as it had gone up too fast. But it was too late for second-guessing now. Now their only option was to see this through.

One by one they went, lighting up at least six piles of the discarded hay before arriving at their last. "Don't forget, Bae," he muttered as he began to hear sounds inside the castle that made him think they were very much aware the building was on fire. "Run into the woods and don't look back. Anyone chasing after you will assume you are fleeing the castle. Say you are the son of a maid if you get caught and meet me at the crossroads. I'll be there as soon as I have the dagger."

"You'll be safe, Papa!"

The comment was more a command than it was a question, but he nodded his head anyway, placed his hand to his boys cheek and kissed his forehead…just in case.

"Of course," he promised, then lit the final torch in the lantern and set the file pile ablaze. "Go, Bae! Run!" He only hesitated for a moment before doing as he was told and running into the woods.

There was an urge he felt once more, an urge to run with him, to abandon hope here with this awful plan and go after his son. But at that very moment, he heard a crack from the back of the building and the sounds of hoofbeats and shouts.

It was just as he expected, they were letting the animals go. Better free them and risk not being able to catch them than burning them all alive. Handlers followed, men who were dressed and those who were only in dressing gowns. Some of them carried things, bridles and saddles, blankets and whips, others were screaming as they flew into the safety of the forest before falling to the ground and examining their bare feet. The roof would be leaving hot ash and debris behind, he'd worn his last good pair of boots for just that reason.

It was now or never and never was not a possibility. He followed the path of the wall, staying a safe distance from the falling debris and was proud to find that at the place they had first started the fire the roof had already burned away. The trick was to stay behind it. The door was open, black smoke was pouring out of it, so he wrapped a cloth around his hand and put it to his mouth, then went in.

For so much fire he'd never expected it to be so dark. The roof was gone, exposing the remnants to the moonlight, but the smoke from the debris acted as its own blanket. He coughed, thankful for the clothe giving at least a little protection from it all. The ground was hot, but his boots had prepared him well, and somehow he found himself muddling through smokey room after smokey room looking for the dagger.

The Tapestry Room. That was where the beggar had said the dagger was kept. It was hidden behind one of the tapestries. The only problem with the fire was that he could hardly tell rooms apart. The falling debris had burned everything to a smolder; couches were ash, pictures were dust, metal was mangled, in some rooms, there was nothing left at all! But if this dagger was as magical as the beggar claimed it was then he hoped that it might not be destroyed in the blaze. And if it was…

They'd find the beggar, and they'd pray that destroying the dagger had destroyed the hold over the Dark One and he'd ask him for his help with Bae. It would be their only other option, but this one wasn't done just yet.

Room after room he explored when the fire had safely burned down. The castle was quiet. He could only imagine that everyone had evacuated and were watching it burn at a safe distance. It allowed him to creep through the place and examine what he could. He found what he thought was a sitting room, then a large dining room with enough silver to feed Bae for years to come…but he didn't give into the temptation to take it. The dagger, that was his only concern, the only thing he needed and cared for.

Finally, he opened the door to a large round room and spied remnants of fabric hanging from the walls. They were burning black and floating to the ground like snow, but he could have danced at the sight of that ash, even with his bad leg. The Tapestry Room. And across the way, still hanging nearly in one piece, as if by magic, a tapestry. There was something odd about it, odd about the way it glowed that drew him to it even in the midst of the falling fire. He pulled the tapestry aside and nearly lost his breath.

It was there!

It was real. A dagger unlike any blade he'd ever seen was perched there behind the tapestry. To say it had jagged edges was an understatement. It was curvy, sinister-looking all on its own, but without thought, for it he reached forward and plucked away for himself.

Power.

He could feel it humming in his hand and up his arm. This must have been what it felt like to be in battle and know the tides had turned in your own favor. He couldn't believe the Beggar had been right! But there it was plain as day. Written across the dagger with large blocky letters spelled out a name.

Zoso.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this scene transitioned from screen to page well enough for you. There wasn't much of all this shown in the show but there was just enough shown that I knew I would have some extra explaining to do when I wrote it all down. I call it "framing" because I don't really come up with the main event, I just put a nice beginning and end all around it to add a bit of context.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you MissBansheeAbby and RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I'm always happy to see theories and questions posed about Rumple and the Dark Ones. If you can hang tight through the next chapter I promise we're going to be getting into that. A lot of this fiction is going to contain some Dark One lore and I do believe you'll like what I did with the character or should I say characters. It'll get a little hairy in some places, but I think we've got this covered. Let's get 'er done! Peace and Happy Reading!


	12. The Name on the Dagger

He was lucky. Possibly for the first time in all his life.

On the way out of the destroyed castle, he encountered no one, and upon stepping outside, he took his first gulp of fresh air and looked around. It was chaos. Animals, mostly chickens, and roosters, animals too stupid to know better, were scattered around him and from the forest, he heard loud shouts and whistles. There were people in there, he couldn't see them, but he could tell from their cries that they were there to herd and capture the animals they'd let run free to escape the fire. Now was his chance.

Though he wished desperately that he'd thought to keep one of the torches for his own use now, he fit the dagger into his belt and began to wander away from the blaze only to find…

A torch. Just there, stuck into the ground in the tree line.

He glanced around, and while there were many voices, he saw no bodies. He reached out to pick it up all the while expecting that someone was about to call out to him, to tell him to drop that and it was their's…but no one said anything. The treasure was pressed tight against his skin and the urge to linger faded. He took his luck as it had come to him and set off into the woods, to the crossroads he'd told Bae he'd meet him at.

It wasn't a long walk, but it felt like it was. All he wanted to do was take the dagger and use it, but he had to find Bae first, make sure he was alright. The smell of ash was still ripe in the air when he came upon the location. It felt like a long walk, but the smell and the fact that when he stopped and listened carefully he could still hear the shouts and screams behind him told him it wasn't as far as he thought it was. He needed to get Baelfire far away from this place. He couldn't risk him being caught or associated with this.

"Papa!"

"Oh, Bae," he breathed, relieved to see his son run out from behind some kind of tree, light in hand. He'd made it away safely. That was good. He couldn't believe they'd actually succeeded. Nearly. The next part was up to him and him alone.

"I was so worried for you. Are…are you burned? The castle-"

"I'm fine, son. I'm fine," he assured him quickly. But suddenly he couldn't remember why he'd asked to meet Baelfire in the forest after all this was over. It seemed much more prudent in this moment for the boy to be elsewhere. He didn't want for his son to watch as he slayed anyone, even the Dark One. And, if he failed to keep his nerve and kill the Dark One, he didn't want Baelfire to see that either. "I need you to go home and wait for me there," he urged.

"Come with me, please. I have a bad feeling!"

"Bae, this is something I have to do on my own," he interrupted. He would have loved for Bae to stay with him and he would have been perfectly happy to take this dagger and the power and have control of that creature, but he'd already gone over all the risks of both of those scenarios in his head the night before. It had to be him, here, alone, killing the Dark One. It had to be. "Go home, son! Go home and wait for me, Bae. I'll be back. You go."

There was nothing but hesitation in the way that Baelfire walked. Of course, he would go, he always did as he was told, he was a good lad. But he could see in his eyes just how much he didn't want to, just how much he wanted to stay in one place and be there with his father, or rather take him home. His son thought this was a bad idea. He'd seen that look infrequently in his lifetime, but just enough to know what it was and what he was thinking. But he shoved the thought of it away. He was the parent and Bae was the child. He knew what was best for his boy, and sometimes parents had to make tough sacrifices for their children. This was what was best. If killing the Dark One was what was going to save Baelfire…then so be it.

Bae a safe distance away, he finally pulled the dagger from his belt. Zoso. The true name of the Dark One. The dagger hummed to life once again in the palm of his hand and he knew this was not going to be like it had with Fendrake the Healer. This was magic, true magic with power like Fendrake, not even his aunts, had not possessed. There was no deal to be made this time around. He'd either kill the Dark One or he'd let him go. He curled his fingers tight around the hilt and held it up to the light in front of him. He wouldn't be letting him go.

"Zoso…"

He tried to shout it, but he was so nervous it came out as only a whisper, a taste of the name. His heart was ramming against his ribs, his body trembling, but he knew that he had to do this louder in order to make it work. To summon him he needed courage and conviction. He could do it. For Bae.

"Zoso. I summon thee!"

He'd done it, he'd gotten the words out and felt a little pulse of energy come from the dagger into his hand and arm. He didn't say the words, but in his mind he kept hoping, begging, that when he appeared before him he wouldn't hurt him, with spell or with fist.

But nothing happened…

No man appeared before him, no figure stood in front of him. The leaves on the ground didn't even rustle. He looked around, wondering if perhaps he had missed something, if he'd arrived and just chosen to hide among the trees as Bae had done. But there was nothing. No movement, no noise.

He lowered his arm and fought back tears. It was a dud. He'd believed the beggar, and until this minute it had all seemed so real but now-

"Whoa!"

He dropped his torch and staggered back, his body ready to bolt at the shock, the problem was his leg wasn't.

There he was! He'd turned to leave and come face to face with…an entity. There was no face to him, just a hood covering his eyes and a mouth that looked…odd. It was discolored. His torch gone, he'd lost control of his cane, but the dagger remained in his hand, and he gripped it tight, his only protection against the darkness.

"You were asking for me?" the creature growled in a deep voice that sounded like the growl of a big dog…or maybe even a lion.

"Submit, O Dark One!" he shouted back, more out of fear and reassurance than confidence. "I control you!"

"Yes, you do," he confirmed. "Wield the power wisely."

Wisely. What had the old man said? What was he supposed to do? Command him to stand still so that he could kill him without danger. Stand still…he hadn't thought about how unfair that command was, about how cruel it would be to take away all a man's ability to fight back as he was killed, but the beggar had said it would be a mercy. He'd been right about everything so far, why not right about this. It just seemed so-

"You can wield at any time now," the creature taunted. Taunted! He stood there shaking, his ankle sore from not having his cane, the dagger held in his hand, and all he wanted to do was step forward and get it over with, yet he found it impossible to move. It was Fendrake all over again. How was he supposed to do this?

"It's almost dawn," the creature observed advancing on him. "That means it's your son's birthday. I bet Hordor and his men are already on their way to your house."

He felt fear, but much to his surprise it faded the moment the Dark One was so close that he could feel his breath on his cheeks. The soldiers taking his son was his greatest fear, but looking into the darkness beneath the hood…it wasn't anymore. The beast couldn't hurt him because he controlled him. The dagger felt cool and powerful in his hand and that power overwhelmed the fear he had.

"No, they can't take him," he stated, urging, commanding the creature not to take a step further in his mind. It listened. Bae was going to be just fine.

"You don't control them, you control me," the Dark One spat back quickly. "Have you ever wondered, was he really your child at all? Unlike you, he's not a coward and yearns to fight and die in glory."

"No…" He felt his eyes widen in terror at the words. How would he know that? How would he know such fear existed? What power did this creature possess?

"What a poor bargain that would be," he went on mercilessly, "to lay down your soul to save your bastard son." He felt tears pool in his eyes and felt helpless to move. Was that a confirmation? Was it true? Was his boy not his boy? "So, I ask you…what would you have me do?"

The thought that Bae wasn't his child was suddenly at the forefront of his mind. He thought a million thoughts all at one time; the first time he measured Bae's height on his cane, all those times Milah had snuck off to see Margery's husband, Bae's first steps, the first time he'd said "Papa", the way he'd held him as he slept, the relief he'd felt when he'd made the deal to save his life. He wanted to know the truth, but knew he never would trust the shadowy figure opposite him to tell it. He was cruel and arrogant…and he could do so much better.

"Die!" he commanded.

With all his thoughts on keeping the Dark One still he launched his arm forward with no hesitation and felt the sickening sensation of plunging blade into flesh. It cut through clothe and skin and heart. The Dark One reeled from the attack and fell to the ground. But he dare not pull it from his chest, he dare not consider letting him use his magic to heal himself and go through this again. With his powers he would know, he would know his son was truly his, he would spare his boy from the Ogre War, he would save all the child and…

As the beast relaxed into the earth his face was finally visible in the light of the torch he'd carried. The dark, discoloration on his skin began to fade and a familiar face emerged.

It was the beggar!

He watched as he struggled for breath in confusion as he looked up into his face and began to laugh.

"It's you!" he breathed in shock. "You're the beggar?"

Of course it was. In one moment, one single flash it all became so clear! How else would a beggar know so much about the dagger and where it was kept? Surely one such as the Dark One had not remained a mystery for so many years by willingly sharing secrets with beggars as he had claimed. He was an idiot.

"Looks like you made a deal you didn't understand," he choked out, though he wasn't sure if it was because he was laughing or dying. "I don't think you're going to do that again."

He held firm to the knife in his chest, his knuckles white from it. He could be killed, couldn't he? He hadn't just brought the beast his dagger and then set him free? It wasn't possible it was a lie, and he was nothing but a pawn to be conned. His father had taught him better than that. "You told me to kill you…"

"My life was such a burden. You'll see. Magic always comes with a price, and now, it's yours to pay," he stated with wide eyes and teeth clenched angrily. He hadn't lied then. He was about to take the powers, become the Dark One but…he hadn't told him it was a burden, he hadn't told him that part!

"Why me?" he cried in fear. Something was happening, something in his hand. He'd tried in that moment to pull it away to leave the dagger there in his chest, but it wouldn't budge. It felt as though he was attached to his dagger. What was happening? Why had he done this? "Why me?"

"I know how to recognize…a desperate soul." His breath came in short difficult bursts. It was death. He recognized it from when his aunts had died. But…if he died then the burden of power…

"No!" he cried as he stopped moving. "No! Stay! You have to tell me what to do! Tell me what to do!" he roared, shaking his body, desperate once again for some small inkling this was all a prank.

The Dark One didn't respond…the dagger did.

He felt it on his palm first, that rush and flash of power he'd first felt when he'd touched the dagger only now it didn't feel as though it was from the contact. It seeped into him. It reached through the dagger, touching his arm, muscle, bone…and his flesh. The skin on his hand began to change. It grew darker, green. He tried once more to pull his hand free from the dagger but found it still stuck and this time the dagger slid free from the chest of the beggar, dripping in red blood. As the feeling crept up his arm, over his shoulder, he shook when he realized that the name on the dagger was different. It had changed.

"Rumplestiltskin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A typical seen scene if there ever was one. I'm on the fence as to whether or not this one translated well. It was slow enough that I like to think that it did, but there were enough twists and turns that I don't think I got it right enough. Either way, I'm willing to accept that sometimes it just is what it is and you have to move on!
> 
> I am looking forward to this next grouping of chapters ya'll! I think you'll like where we go with Rumple next. Even in Moments Series my favorite chapters were usually those with magic and magical learning in them. This fiction has a ton of those chapters and they are just on the horizon! On to the next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	13. The Old in the New

He remembered very little about how he got to this strange place.

He remembered Zoso and pulling the dagger from his still-warm body. He remembered the blood dripping from it as he'd read his own name, his true name, correct spelling and all, across that dagger. He could remember scrambling away from the body as he flung his hands about, desperate to try and rid himself of the source of the infection. He remembered how he was unable to escape, how he'd groped about in the dark for his cane so that he could run away before being struck down as the feeling had traveled into his chest and then his other extremities too. Up his neck. Over his shoulders. Down his opposite arm. Into his torso. The feeling continued to pour down his legs and only stopped at the tips of his toes, and just when he'd thought that was it, he remembered his body becoming liquid. The arm attached to the dagger transformed into thick strands of inky blackness that raced across him faster than the first sensation had. He remembered opening his mouth to scream and then…nothing.

This place.

It was quiet. Dark and unnaturally silent for this time of night. The only sounds all around him were whisperings that sent him looking around, turning his head this way and that to find the source. But he found no people around him. And he couldn't even remember standing up.

He was atop a platform of some kind in dark woods. In one discolored and shaking hand he held his cane, in the other, there was only the dagger.

Somehow he knew that if he loosened the muscles in his hand, this time he would be able to drop it, but a voice in the back of his head hissed at him to hold it tighter, to…to protect it?

Those words had him reeling all over again. That wasn't his thought. The voice in his head didn't even sound like him! It was the wrong gender. The voice was female, low and husky, authoritative.

Nimue.

Nimue?

More whispering?

He looked over his shoulders again, half expecting to see someone there at any moment, but there was no one there. There was no light, no burning torch, no path, no body, dead or alive, anywhere around him and these woods…it was dark, but one look around and he knew he was not in the place where he had grown up.

"Where am I?" he questioned aloud, trying to find some landmark, some hint at where he'd turned up, or how, or-

"Where all Dark One's begin…"

A noise, that voice, in particular, would have made him in jump a mile in the air. But his heart was already racing, and he'd been prepared for just about anything. Still…he hadn't been prepared for the voice of the beggar, loud and plain as day, behind him in the empty wood.

He turned slowly, his tongue feeling suddenly very thick as his body went cold. Where there had once been empty wood there now stood the figure of Zoso. He was upright, a dark robe draped over him just as he'd been wearing when he killed him. The hood was down, allowing him to finally see the extent of the discoloration he'd only glimpsed before…

Before he'd died.

Or had supposedly died…

"How did I get here?" he asked, his voice low. It was angry. He couldn't remember the last time he'd used a tone such as this on anyone.

"Magic," Zoso replied, before breaking into a big toothy smile.

Magic. Magic from a deal he'd made. Magic from a trick he hadn't understood. Magic that hadn't been explained to him by the monster in front of him. The voices were whispering again, urging him forward, making his heart pound.

He could kill him!

"You!" he roared, pointing the dagger at him. "You tricked me! You-"

He lunged forward, dagger in hand, prepared to spear it through his body and feel the blood gush once more, but-

He'd only gotten two steps when he realized…

It was a funny thing, to live most of one's life with a sensation, the body accommodated and bent and worked to overcome it. To not feel that sensation, to not even feel a twinge of pain when his weight was on his cane, after more than a decade of pain…it hushed the whispers and stopped him in his tracks.

He gasped and shook as he looked down at his leg, at his ankle. His cane fell from his hand and landed with a loud clatter upon the platform and, dagger in hand, he quickly pulled his pants up to reveal the joint. It was perfect. After living with a maimed ankle for years, he was shocked to feel no pain, to move it normally. It seemed a miracle!

"Not a miracle…just magic."

He quickly turned to look behind him and saw Zoso there. But how?

He looked ahead of him, the last place he'd been and saw nothing but forest. How had he moved so quickly, without sound? And his leg and this place…there was only one overwhelming question for all of it.

"H-how?"

"Stop stuttering," Zoso commanded, rolling his eyes and walking around the platform, always keeping him in his sight. "It no longer becomes you Rumpelstiltskin."

Not Rumpelstiltskin, not as he knew it, not according to the dagger. Now, he was Rumplestiltskin. That awful spelling his father had used when he was born and he'd refused to use after he'd left because he was desperate to have no part of his father, not even the name he'd given. How would this dagger know the true spelling? How had he ended up here? How could he walk? What…

Who was whispering?!

"Just explain to me what has happened?!" he demanded angrily once more. He was once a man who had a wealth of patience, something that had irritated Milah to no end. Now he felt as if it was all gone. And just looking at the man before him…he wanted him to die. Really die. Die and never come back unlike whatever had just happened to keep him on this earth!

"I killed you," he growled at him.

But Zoso only chuckled. "You didn't kill me. You can't. I live in you."

He felt a shiver curl up his spine. What did that mean?

"It means, I am the voice inside your head, the one who will teach you to use this power you have acquired," he answered without question. His sneer was chilling.

"You?!" he choked out.

"Someone has to. But, I suppose if you prefer another…"

All at once, there was a dark substance like smoke, and the man before him vanished. What reappeared when the smoke faded seemed to be a fat hairy pig, bigger than any pig he'd ever known to be with tusks that could easily disembowel him. He tried to scramble away, but when the beast opened its mouth, the forest was suddenly lit up with flame. He crashed down upon that hard surface and held his hands up over his head.

"No! Stop! Please!" he begged of the creature.

The flames stopped instantly.

"Yes…Gorgon the Invinceible usually has that effect…"

The voice drew him to pick up his head and look. What he saw before him was only the man, Zoso, standing before him once more, chuckling. The only difference now was that he wasn't so sure it was the Zoso he'd known, the one he'd killed. He'd killed a man, he wasn't sure what this beast he was dealing with was.

"Who are you?" he questioned using his cane to help him stand simply out of habit. It was clear from his gaze that Zoso noticed and disliked the action, but chose to say nothing about it.

"I am many things," he breathed. "I'm the voice in your head, the Dark One's Powers inside you, inside many. You can think of me as your guide. But only until you've learned to embrace your powers."

"Powers…I just-"

It was that word, that statement that brought him back to the reality he'd known. He'd done this for Bae, to take the powers of the Dark One so that he could fight off the soldiers and then the ogres and save the children. But he had no idea where he was now…and as he looked around he knew it was dark but only for another few hours. Soon enough the sun would rise, and it would be Bae's birthday. He had to get to him, fast.

"Baelfire…where's my boy? I need to get to him! Let me go!" This time he did lunge forward, he dropped the cane and intended to hold onto the man's collar until he told him what he needed to know. But by the time he got to him, he found nothing but empty air.

"Then by all means, go."

He was behind him again, looking as thought he hadn't moved, as if all was perfectly well. His hand was extended out over the wilderness before them; wilderness that was growing lighter.

"I stop playing tricks! I don't know where I am!" he growled through clenched teeth. Even if the way he was pointing was the way home it could be miles from here, days. He didn't have days! He'd managed to bring him here some how he must know how to get him back!

"You do know how to get back," Zoso hissed excitedly taking a step forward. "It doesn't matter that you don't know where you are everything you need to get back to him is right inside of you, you just need to learn how to access it and use it. That's what I'm for!"

Zoso spoke with conviction but he felt nothing but skeptical at the entire situation. This thing, this man, had urged him to kill him, and he had. Now he wanted to help him? It simply didn't make sense to him. Nothing was logical.

"You're going to help me? After I killed you?"

"You didn't kill me Rumpelstiltskin," he corrected again, this time repeating the words with firmness instead of an amused chuckle. He was getting just as angry as he was. "You killed the skin, the body I walked around in and was bound to. You have just joined a mystical collective, a vast wealth of knowledge acquired by the Curse of the Dark One throughout the generations since it started."

That all sounded very grand and wonderful, but it still didn't answer what remained between the two of them.

"But I killed you."

Suddenly Zoso's features shifted, his eyes widened with fury, his jaw shrank, his statue shorter, his features more delicate and before he knew it what stood in front of him wasn't a man, but a woman, black hair slicked back over her skull, with that same discolored skin. The voices in his head hissed and trembled in admiration and fear. Then they quieted all together. Nimue.

"Pay attention!" she shouted stepping next to him so they were nearly nose to nose. "You think this curse is weak, that it can be overcome or tamed?! I thought it too, we all did. But it can't! Once the man dies, the curse will live on in the body of the next desperate soul, and the next, and the next, and the next for all eternity! That is what you have bought! You are the inhabitant now. You are the host! If you wish to stay that way there is much to learn starting with the blade in your hand."

He felt stiff and motionless. It was shock and fear and reverence racing through him all at once. He didn't know how to respond to it. His hand trembled as he held the blade up and looked it over. He could still feel power coming off of it, but now that power felt connected to him, tied in all the places they touched.

"The dagger…"

"Take it!"

Over his shoulder there was Zoso again. In front of him, the woman was gone, and he was suddenly grateful to see the man he'd killed once more. He hadn't liked the pig, Gorgon, the voices informed him. But he would rather the pig over Nimue any day. Zoso was suddenly the one he preferred.

"Protect the dagger," Zoso insisted. "Keep it with you, some place safe, some place close. You'll find there is magic you can do without it, though there is also great power to be gleaned when it rests in your palm. Protect it better than I did. Let no one and nothing come between you and it, not even your son, or else you will find yourself a slave to he who wields it. In your hands, freedom is your own."

He rested his cane against his shoulder and looked down at the gleaming metal in his hand. Protect. That was what the voices were telling him. Protect this dagger. Trust it to no one. Let no one come between the two…not even his son.

Baelfire. The reason he'd done this.

He didn't like that idea.

"Tell me," he ordered through clenched teeth. "Tell me where my son is…now!"

He was tired of this game. He was tired of this back and forth and the very suggestion that he couldn't trust his son with what was most precious to him…

His son…his son was most precious.

The dagger was…not as precious.

The trouble was he wasn't so sure that Zoso, or any of the others liked his thoughts either.

"Find water. See for yourself."

And then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the joys of writing this series, as well as Moments, is that I get a chance to take things that look inconsistent and make them consistent. In season one, when we watched Rumple become the Dark One, it appeared that the curse grabbed on to him and that was that. In season five, when Emma became the Dark One, we watched as she was caught up in a great whirlwind that turned her into a black goop, transported her back to the Enchanted Forest, and resurrected her at the vault of the Dark One. And yes, I know, the way these two became Dark Ones were different enough that I didn't really have to unify their experience. Rumple inherited his curse in the "traditional" way while Emma's was really anything but traditional and I could have totally left it alone and let it be. But, I really, really like being able to join things together and make them unified. So I took advantage of some scene cuts in this chapter, added a bit of Emma's experience into his, and just like that we have this chapter and a single unified way in which a person becomes a Dark One. And hey, maybe not so much a stretch when you consider that Rumple did go missing until morning. What was happening in that time?
> 
> I hope you are going to like these sections and how I'm about to weave everything together. I'm sure many of you aren't really surprised to see that Zoso is going to go on and become a pretty major character in this fiction. After "Rumple's" role with Emma when she became the Dark One it's not a shocker to imagine that Zoso would serve as that for Rumple. What might be a surprise is that Nimue is along for the journey too, along with several other Dark Ones from the past. I thought the show made it clear that once you take on the role of the Dark One you acquire all the knowledge from all the other Dark Ones before you. It was fun trying to figure out how to write it. Here we see it in little ways that Rumple probably doesn't even recognize are big ways. He hears whispers, recognizes one is a female, and is able to name her "Nimue" without meeting her. In the next chapter, this idea of memory sharing is going to become a bit more prominent. Hope you like it! Peace and Happy Reading!


	14. A First Taste

"No!"

Zoso was gone.

"No!"

And all at once, as if they'd all agreed on it, the voices went suddenly very quiet in his head. No men, no women, no pigs even!

"No!"

The one link he had, the one hope of getting back to his son and rescuing him seemed suddenly gone and he had an urge, a desire like he'd never had before to pick up his pathetic stick and hurl it against a tree and scream until it broke and shattered into a thousand tiny splinters!

He could do it! He knew he could. Though he'd never possessed that kind of strength before, he knew now that it would be all too easy to do. As a matter of fact, it was already in his hand, his fingers bent tight around it, his arms reared back and ready to fly-

Until he felt a notch below his fingers.

The fire within him cooled.

Bae. When he was ten. That was the notch, that was each notch. How tall Bae was at a certain age. The first time he done it, Bae was only two. He'd smiled as he made the notch and told him this way they'd have something to judge how tall he was getting by. Bae had been so excited he'd asked him to measure him every day for two weeks then at least once a month after that until he was four or five. Then the notches came yearly. They were small enough not to damage the integrity of his cane, but big enough to make a difference when he'd walked and Bae had walked with him. He carried a piece of his son everywhere he went.

He hated this cane. He hated what it meant and suddenly he hated the limp that came with it. He'd never despised any of those things before, never. Instead, he'd been weak, he'd taken his deficiencies in stride, he'd cowered behind this cane and his leg and his wife and son…but no more.

His nose turned up at the cane in his hand. He still wanted desperately to dash it to pieces against the tree, but those notches…he could never hate those. They were the saving grace of the old cane; it's protector. A visual representation of the weak old man who was saved by others. Not anymore.

Now he was going to be the one to save them! They'd see! He would save Bae, he'd save all the children, all the Kingdom. He would! What had that old fool Zoso told him to do? Find water? Done. If that was what he had to do to get to Baelfire, then that was what he would do.

"Tell me how to find water," he commanded into the air.

There was silence. Silence all around him, and somehow, he knew it was a test. "Embrace the Darkness" Zoso had said. He didn't like that idea, but if it were as simple as embracing the magic he had to gain access to whatever lived inside of him, then he would. Use him? No! Never! He would use it! He would take advantage of it! It inhabited him; he was in control, not the other way around. And he was suddenly tired of the silence.

He held the dagger in front of him, noticing for the first time that it was perfectly silver, clean of the blood it had spilled earlier in the night. "Rumplestiltskin"…fine, it wanted him to be the product of his father, then he would be the product of his father. For Bae.

"Tell me how!" he screamed so loud his belly hurt, and he felt his eyes bulge.

"You are in the Forbidden Forest."

He turned and found before him a beautiful young woman wearing a black dress with a long cape that flowed out behind her perfectly without so much as a wrinkle. Ophelia. He knew that was her name. And he knew that despite the perfection of the train behind her, she hadn't walked here. If her sudden appearance hadn't given her away then her greenish skin would have. Dark One.

"I've never heard of it," he pointed out. He stood up straight and faced her, refusing to be afraid of these creatures again. Though he had to admit, he felt a certain type of relief that it wasn't Nimue.

"It's in the fallen Kingdom of Camelot," she revealed. Her voice was light and almost lyrical. She sounded as though she was daydreaming as she spoke, but there was something more to her, something about her black hair and revealing dress that left something bitter about her sweetness. "These woods are abandoned and haunted. Few dare to venture so deep, but as a child, I couldn't help but be drawn to this place, to conquer the unconquerable. My mother always said that I loved a good challenge, she swore it would be the death of me. I guess she was right…"

Images flooded his mind. Images and names and facts that hadn't been there and yet always had.

Ophelia, normal skinned and walking in the garden.

Ophelia struggling beneath the body of a stranger, attempting to fight him off, being over powered, then being ripped apart from the inside out, torn in two.

Ophelia's thirst for vengeance leading her to a hole in the ground where there was a shiny dagger.

There was a scream as Kazeem, the Dark One, fell to the ground and perished as her own skin began to darken.

And then there was the stranger's skinless body, hung from a tree, dripping blood.

A sharp pain in her back.

She'd laid the dagger on a rock to exact her revenge. Oliver, the youngest of them had found it next.

The images ended and when he saw her once more the sides of her lips curled in a small delicate smile. It was a knowing smile, one that showed she knew what he'd seen and held no guilt or embarrassment all the same. All things considered, he didn't think he would say she was guilty even if he hadn't found out this way. If she were living, real and alive, he might have given her comfort or apologized on behalf of all decent men for what had happened and led her to this fate, but she wasn't alive and Baelfire was. He had to keep his son's life in mind.

"Tell me how to find water," he ordered of her.

Her small smile grew and she nodded her head once, then turned and walked off. He followed her. He was supposed to, it was what she wanted, he could feel it. She left no footprints behind, even though the ground was damp and he did. His boots were soaked through, but he didn't care. Find water. Get back to Bae. That was the only thing on his mind. Though he did have to admit, as he moved through the forest which grew denser and denser by the footstep, he was fascinated with how little trouble she seemed to have with it. He moved over logs, ducked for branches, squeezed between trees; she never seemed to lose her proud posture. She'd been a lady, she'd been trained never to slouch.

Finally, she came to a stop at a wild place, where thorns grew up out of the forest floor and seemed to create a thick solid wall. There was a hole in it, just big enough for a small man like himself to fit. Beyond that, darkness. But he knew what it meant before Ophelia turned and told him.

"Look down there."

He left her behind and stepped carefully through the hole, one leg after another. Outside it was lightening. The sky was becoming blue and the sun was on the verge of rising. In here it was as if night never ended. The thorns encompassed a small field of rock and green grass. Above him the black sky was dotted with bright white stars. It was beautiful. But it wasn't what he was here for.

"What are you here for, Rumpelstiltskin?"

He wasn't surprised this time to see Zoso waiting for him, hood down, hands folded, only a short distance away.

"As if you need me to tell you," he answered. "'Find water'. I've found the water! I don't see my son! Where is he?!"

He watched as Zoso stepped closer to the water's edge. He followed; that was what Zoso wanted.

"Picture him," he commanded. "Close your eyes and let the voices you hear guide you."

He knew better than to fight it. Fighting it only meant it would take longer so he did as he was told. He closed his eyes and pictured his boy's handsome face, his brown hair, his mother's eyes, his pale skin…

"See him."

"Think of him."

"Pool of sight."

"Water of wisdom."

"It bows to us…"

He felt a tingle in his hand, the one holding the dagger and opened his eyes.

He knew what to do.

Over the little pond he waved the dagger. The water rippled as if a breeze had blown across it and he knelt down, watching it begin to turn colors without amazement. Why should he be amazed? After all…they'd done this before.

There was Bae, a perfect picture of him. He was at home, in a chair he'd moved close to the hearth, his head resting upon his crossed arms. His nose was red from sitting too close to the fire.

"Behold, your son, Rumpelstiltskin," Zoso whispered from above. "Safe and sound, waiting for his father, just as he was told. But better yet, where is the King's Army?"

Yes. It wasn't Bae he was worried about, it was the army, it was Horder coming to take his child away from him just as other parents had their children taken away! Bae would do as he told him to. The Army was the true problem. With another wave from the dagger he saw the scene transform. It was a dusty path, perhaps five minutes from home. The sun had risen, and there were men dressed in black riding on horses. They were close! They'd take Bae if he wasn't there to save him!

He rose, letting the images sink to the bottom of the pool. Anger swelled up inside of him, black and putrid at the thought of Hordor taking his child the way he'd taken Morraine. That wasn't going to happen. Never would that man touch a child again.

He looked Zoso in the eye and held the dagger out in front of him once more, proof that though he was dead the power was still his to control.

"Tell me how to get to my son," he snarled at him.

Suddenly Zoso broke into a big, wide grin. "That's a bit more like it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun with this chapter too! With this one I meant to explore what it's going to be like to have all those Dark Ones inside at one time and how they are able to help him along the way. He acquires knowledge from them that is far more than just magic spells and potions. This also shows that he keeps a record of Dark Ones as well. He sees Ophelia and immediately knows her name, her situation, how she became the Dark One, why, and then how she died. Although Zoso and Nimue are the ones he's going to work with the most it was fun, on occasion, to imagine other Dark One's that might be better to speak with him at certain times and why. Here it's Ophelia because he needs to find something in the woods and she knows the woods better than any of them so who else would guide him. We'll see a few more like her along the way. Vengeful as they may be I hope you'll smile a little when they come to the surface. For as many Dark Ones as there have been, there have been just as many stories.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your very kind comments! I'm so glad that you liked the last chapter! I do believe that with the next chapter we are back to a familiar scene but after that what follows for a bit is 6x13 mixed with more chapters like these two so if you liked what has happened here then stay tuned because there is more of it coming your way! On to the next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	15. The New Dark One

Teleportation, the ability to transport oneself from place to place using one's mind, was an easy skill to master. It was as simple as anything else he'd learned so far. When in doubt, take a breath, close the eyes, and let the voices take the lead.

In this case, a prideful male voice, Jovi, had answered his call. "Picture the place you want to be, and then let yourself go there." When he opened his eyes, he was home.

Not home, exactly. He was outside his house, in the woods that bordered their little village. Had it always been this bright? This yellow? He thought those colors had faded years ago with the coming of the war, but now he knew they hadn't. And it wasn't just his leg that had been damaged and now he was seeing everything clearer and brighter for the first time in years, there was more to it. His eyesight, his taste, his smell, Zoso told them they had all returned as if he was a young man again and some senses would be even better than that. His strength, for example, was multiplied far beyond human standards, so long as he used his magic right.

His magic.

It was time to use it to become a hero.

Inside his head the voices recoiled at such a thought, but he ignored them and looked at the items he held in his hands. His cane in one, his dagger in the other. The dagger would stay with him, obviously, nestled in his belt, right by his side. But the cane…

He dare not toss it away, not with all those notches in it. But he didn't necessarily want to be seen with it either. He couldn't bear the thought of using it as he once had that vile doll his father had given him. It was a security he didn't need or want anymore. And then the thought struck him, if he could transport himself through magic, what about other items?

The moment he thought it, it was no longer a question. He knew the answer. He could. All he had to do was think it and-

The cane disappeared in a puff of red smoke, off to the place he imagined beneath his bed. He smiled for a moment, proud of himself before remembering the real reason he was here. Instinctively, he pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head, obscuring his face. The voices in his head rejoiced at his action. He was a faster learner than they had initially guessed.

As he stepped through the bushes and trees, he heard the sounds of horses. They were already gathered there, though he could not see them. They'd left one soldier outside with the horses, one soldier who was stupid enough not to look over his shoulder.

What should he do? Frighten him? Scare him? Send him running for the hills? Or more?

He was stealth, the band seemed completely unaware of his presence as he crept closer to them, his hand curled tight around his dagger. He was focused until he heard the sound of footsteps. Hordor emerged from his house, a truly unwelcome visitor all on his own but when he saw he was dragging his son along by the arm, he felt himself sneer in anger and disgust that he'd let it get this far. He pulled the dagger from his belt again. His decision was made. He'd do worse than "more".

"Everyone's watching from behind their curtains today," Hordor joked with his men. The watch barely had time to chuckle at the weak before he took his dagger and plunged it into the back of the soldier, cutting through mail and fabric, and introducing it to his black heart. The blade vibrated rhythmically for a just a moment as it stopped beating and he savored the feeling right along with the voices in his head before the wretched man fell to the ground.

It was just one man, obviously one unimportant man as they'd left him as the watchman, but they all took notice. None dared to take another step toward him and Hordor even let go of Baelfire at the sight of him, his eyes wide, first with shock and perhaps a bit of wonder, but it all very quickly faded to fear.

Zoso laughed as Hordor bent a knee and bowed his head, but he remained silent, reveling in the submission of this bully, a tower of muscle who would not disobey him. At least he was smart enough to know who he'd really served all that time with the Duke.

"Dark One," he acknowledged, his voice suddenly reverent, a far cry from the last time he'd seen him on that road. He stepped closer and the proud fool was daring enough to pick up his head to look him in the eyes. "No…who are you?" he questioned with a breath.

He felt anger surge up inside of him at the reality that he hadn't recognized him for who he was, that he still thought he was Zoso, that he hadn't recognized that desperate man he'd made kiss his boot! He'd certainly remembered that it was Bae's birthday today. It was time he learned that rank had its privileges and while once, a long time ago, he was his to command now it was something more. He was the one on his knees, he was the one bowing. He wanted his name to be the last thing he ever thought about.

"Have you forgotten me already?" he taunted. "What was it you used to call me again? Spindleshanks? Hobblefoot," he concluded offering a snap for the idea.

"Papa?"

He heard Bae cry out for him but dare not break the gaze he had on Hordor, not as he watched the man lose his breath and begin to tremble with the recognition he craved from him. Saving his boy from the war felt good, but this, this sweet, sweet revenge, felt so much better.

He watched as his eyes went to the dagger swinging from his hands and he let him get a good look at the new name scrawled across the blade. "Rumpelstiltskin," he confirmed.

"Wonderful," he smiled. It felt wonderful. It felt extraordinary, a high all on its own to hold the captive attention of every soldier here who had taunted and harassed him all his life. Now it was his turn to repay the favor, to show them the error of their ways and make them regret it. But first, a special treat for the man he'd hated most off all, ever since that awful day he'd crippled himself and had to answer to his questioning. It was a special reckoning for the man who had taken pleasure in embarrassing him in front of his child.

"And now, you shall know me as the new Dark One. How about a little fealty?" He could hardly breathe he was so pleased and excited with himself, but he placed his foot forward and stared down at the terrified man with happiness. "Kiss my boot!"

He was shaking, much like he had been nights ago when it was presented to him, but he didn't hesitate, didn't question, didn't try to make a deal or argue about it. Instead, he bent over, exposing a delicate neck and submissive head. He couldn't wait anymore. He wouldn't. The creature inside of him demanded blood, and it would have it!

Hordor let out a gasp when he put his hands on his head, but he didn't have time to scream before he turned it with unnatural strength, strength like he'd never had before. He heard the crack and felt the grind of neck bones that had gone where they did not belong.

Bae called out to him, but the words were muffled, hidden beneath the approving cries of the voices in his head, encouraging him, cheering him on. He was very aware Hordor wasn't the only threat on this road.

The first man had no time to pull his sword from his sheath before he stabbed him in the heart and went on.

The second, he was quick to find that sweet spot just below his chin and raked the blade across perfect pale skin to leave a bloody slice allowing blood to pour away with his life.

The next gave a valiant effort at pulling his sword free to fight, but he drove his own blade into his gut first and left him to bleed out on the grass.

The last was still on horseback, much higher up than he was in height alone, but when he leaned forward to kick at his horse and gallop away he jumped and grabbed his arm as Bae had been grabbed then used his dagger to stab him in the back. He'd breathed his last before he hit the ground.

And there he stood. Master of his domain. The true power in this realm and all of them, the one to be feared. So long as he had the dagger in his hand, so long as it was safe, so long as he had this power. It felt good to leave behind the mantle of weakness; to be strong.

"Papa?" the voice of his boy suddenly cut through the silent triumph and he looked over to find him looking white. "What has happened to you?" Baelfire questioned as he stood there and breathed, looking down at the bodies he'd laid to rest. No child would ever feel unsafe in this Kingdom again and most important of all, Bae would never be afraid of war again.

"You're safe, Bae," he smiled at him, a job well done, a plan perfectly executed. "Do you feel safe, son?"

He tried to embrace him, to celebrate this wonderful occasion with him but every step he took closer, Bae took one back.

"No," he answered. "I'm frightened."

What a funny thing to say? Especially when for the first time since his son had come into the world, he felt nothing of that emotion.

"I'm not," he smiled. "I protected what belongs to me, and I'm not scared of anything."

And what a wonderful feeling that was. His smile became the laugh that he heard in his head as Baelfire ran safely into the house, and he turned to look out over his work. Well done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do hope this chapter turned out alright. It was certainly a difficult one to write for a number of reasons. Perhaps the first of which is that I've never killed anyone nor have I ever legitimately felt the urge to kill someone. Said it a few times, but never actually been serious enough to really want to do it. And yet, this is exactly what I had to capture in his chapter: boodlust, a need for murder, and with a character that I actually kind of like and have never believed was 100% evil. That makes things difficult. Add to that the behavior that Rumple displays following these scenes in 6x13 is really nothing like how he acts in this scene. Therefore, I went with a different route, an overwhelming route. I decided to take this in the direction of a man who is overcome by a curse and hasn't learned to control it yet. In my mind, this scene is the Dark One on steroids. Even in the beginning, I tried to write it in a very overwhelming, sensory oriented way that hopefully sounds like someone who is just on a drug high. So...how'd I do?!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments! I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this chapter. And I'm excited to hear about what you'll think from this point on. With any luck you will like how I incorporated the Beowulf episode into the grander scheme of things. On to the next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	16. The Best Deal of All

He'd done it. He had actually managed to do it! Hordor and his small troop lay dead at his feet, Baelfire was safely in their house, and he would be safe for all the rest of his days. He'd done it. And he couldn't be more pleased with himself if he tried. His body was humming, vibrating with power and satisfaction and pleasure. These powers were…the best thing that had ever happened to him in all his life. Truly. He suddenly didn't know why he'd never thought to explore magical options before this moment, but was at least happy that he'd arrived where he was one way or anther. Next, he would take back his property, then build a bigger house, maybe create a farm, make sure there was enough food to go around and-

Glass suddenly shattered and a high scream suddenly filled his ears.

Behind him. Marrisal. The woman who lived across the street with three wee bairns. She'd come outside, it appeared, to get some milk and stumbled upon his work. A face appeared over her shoulder, then another scream as someone looked out their own front door, and another. They were all coming out of their homes, staring in shock at the bodies around him, and…

Now they came out of hiding?! When Bae had been threatened they'd hid in their houses, like cowards, turning away to his son's pain and suffering. No one had offered to help him. That made them nearly as guilty as the soldiers in his book.

He felt his hand close into a fist and sneered at them. He could do something about their decisions. He could do anything he wanted, anything he could imagine to make them pay for their betrayal, their silence, their inaction. Anything to make them regret the years they'd made him the outsider, the coward. Anything…

But when one of them finally spotted him, he watched as his eyes widened, and before he could take a step he found himself confronted by Zoso, a man no one could see.

"There will be time for all that later, first you must learn that sometimes protection comes in running away. There is fear in rumors and the unknown, Rumpelstiltskin. Hide yourself!"

He wanted to resist. He wanted to scream that he didn't need to do that anymore and he never would again, certainly not with these lowly people. There was nothing to fear from them now. He was stronger than them.

"But your son is not!" Zoso spat before he could respond.

All at once, he became aware; aware of his breath, of the blood on his hands, the blade in his palm, the eyes that were slowly starting to look over at him. Zoso was right. He couldn't risk them getting angry and coming after Bae. Even if they did something he could make them regret, it might not be enough to help Bae. He placed his dagger back into his belt, quickly lifted the hood of his cloak over his head and darted into his house, peeking out the window just long enough to see a few who had seen him point in confusion before returning to the bodies.

"Hide our secret, Rumpelstiltskin. The fewer who know who you are, the better. Your name will protect you."

He knew exactly what Zoso meant.

His name, his true name…

He lifted the dagger free from his belt and examined the dagger. "Rumplestiltskin"…the right spelling but not the spelling he used. He wasn't sure the significance of that, but he knew he wanted to keep the secrecy of it. Not even Bae knew.

Bae…

At the thought of his son, he turned and examined the house. He'd seen Bae run inside, but where was he?

Hiding in plain sight.

As the villagers met outside to discuss what was going on, his son was sitting on the hearth by the fire. His eyes were wide as they stared at him from the other side of the room. He was shivering. That was understandable, after what the soldiers had done to him…they'd nearly succeeded in carting him off to the war. It made sense that he'd be a little shocked at the moment.

"It's alright, Bae," he cooed, placing the knife back in his belt and letting the voices in his head quiet. "It's alright." He moved to get closer to Bae, but the boy didn't answer. He only shook his head and flinched the moment he'd touched him. It was only that flinch that made him pause. "Are you hurt? Did they harm you in any way?"

If those brutes had harmed his son…

But Bae only shook his head. His eyes remained fearful as he stared up at him, and it was then that he realized that it wasn't the soldiers bothering him, but rather his presence.

"Why do you look at me that way?"

Baelfire was shaking as he sat huddled on the hearth, but he lifted his head anyway. "I'm-I'm…I'm frightened."

"Frightened? Oh, you have nothing to fear now, Bae!" he urged, taking the seat across from him. "The soldiers, they're dead. They're not going to hurt you ever again, no one will. You're safe now."

"It's not them it's you!" Baelfire exclaimed rising from his place and by the hearth and moving around the table on the far side. He kept to the walls, pacing like come kind of caged animal. And he looked at him like…like he might pounce and eat him up in one swallow. "You killed them! Why did you do that?" he shrieked.

"To protect you, son!" he explained, attempting to keep his voice low. He mustn't let the people outside hear him. "It way the only way! It had to be done!"

"They weren't hurting me!"

"But they would have," he insisted. "They'd have seen you taken to the front and murdered. It was either them or you, Bae. I had to save you."

He didn't respond. He just sat there with his back to the wall, staring at him as if he'd just commit some kind of unforgivable infraction. Murder was not a good thing, but this had been justifiable. He'd had to save Bae. He'd had to show them that he was the one in charge.

"Bae-"

"What did you do?" he questioned quickly. "Why do you look like that?"

The memory came back to him all at once. The strange colored skin on Zoso. The way it had crept up into his own hand. He rose quickly to his feet and found the shiniest metal pot he had. Looking at it now, he could see that it was different. His nails were long, sharp, and black. His skin wasn't nearly as dark as Zoso's had been, but it was an odd greenish color with small specks of gold on the surface. It seemed just like dust, but he couldn't get it out no matter how hard he rubbed at his hands. The discoloration of his skin was throughout his neck and face, he had a feeling if he disrobed he'd find it was everywhere. His hair had a different texture to it. It wasn't straight like he remembered but wavy now and his eyes…it was difficult to say what it was, but he knew his eyes looked different in some way. The image before him was too distorted for detail, but he knew it wasn't the same as it had always been.

He was surprised, but somehow not shocked. He'd known he'd look like this and at the same time he hadn't. How could he not? He'd seen Zoso and Nimue, had visions of Ophelia and Oliver and every other Dark One, they all looked the same! The surprise was more from seeing it for the first time than anything. The voices outside suddenly seemed louder. He wasn't going to be able to keep this a secret for long. Not around here anyway. But Bae…

"It's only the curse, son," he explained calmly. He wanted Bae to see reason, if he acted scared, then Bae would be scared too. "It's the way all Dark One's look."

Bae swallowed so hard he could see his throat move up and down. But he finally pushed himself off of the wall and took two small steps closer to the table he'd been sitting at.

"Can it be broken?" he asked. "All curses can be, can't they?"

There was an eruption of noise in his head, laughter and hissing and he felt his own body flinch in reaction to such a thought. Break this curse? Why would he want him to do that? Did he not know what giving up the power would mean? The only thing that could break this curse?

"Only with death…only if we don't keep this safe." He pulled the dagger from his belt as he explained and set it on the table. The moment it left his skin and sat free and open, vulnerable to Baelfire in the noonday sun, he felt a shiver move up his back. _Don't!_ The voices cried and rebelled in his head, wanting him to take it back, to hold onto it once more.

They didn't understand. But they would. It was just Bae. It was safe here between them. Bae would never use the dagger for the purposes they feared. Never.

"It's the dagger, Bae," he explained as his son finally stepped forward and sat down opposite him. He held the dagger in his hands and for the first time since he'd held it he felt that magnetic power shift. It was no longer connected to him, but rather to Baelfire. He held it. He could wield it, command him to do anything and he knew he would. But he knew Bae wouldn't dare. "It's the Dark One dagger I told you about. Whoever holds it controls the Dark One. Whoever kills the Dark One with it, takes on their powers. That's the only way to expel the mantle, Bae. Is that what you want?"

"No, but…" Suddenly Baelfire dropped the dagger, he pushed it closer to him and shook his head before finally meeting his gaze once more. His fear was still there, but it was fading. That was good. He just needed to understand. "Papa, I don't like this. It was a bad idea! You're…different! And your leg…what happened to your leg?!"

"Magic, son. It's only magic!" he urged as he slid the dagger back into his belt and finally felt able to relax again. "But I…I kept my cane! Here look!"

He quickly rose from his seat and settled easily onto the floor to remove it from the place he'd stored it under the bed, or attempted to store it. He was delighted to see it had worked. The magic had done exactly what he'd wanted it to do. This was wonderful.

"See here, Bae," he stood once more and walked to the place his son was sitting, happy to see he didn't flinch this time when he came toward him. "All these notches are you. I couldn't get rid of it."

"But…" Bae reached up and ran his hands over it. He let his fingers linger against some of the deeper notches and shook his head. "You left with this last night! You haven't been back since, I know because I waited up for you to return home! Where did you go? What happened to you?! How did this get here?!"

"Bae…" he set the cane aside and kneeled before him smiling, simply because he'd never been able to kneel before his son before. This truly was the best thing that had ever happened to him. "I've become the most powerful man in all the realms and now…now I can do anything! What do you want? It will be yours! How about…how about a fine feast!"

The voices were excited, they whispered instructions to him, they showed him what to think about and how to move his arm, and in seconds the table was dressed in a fine white cloth like they'd never owned and adorned with candles, pewter dishes, and food! Roast chicken, rice, greens, mashed potatoes, gravy, oh it all smelled so perfect. And he could do better.

"What about a fresh bed, with new blankets!" A moment later his own bed was made and draped with fine sheets and thick blankets.

"More wood!" It appeared by the fire in puff of smoke.

"Toys!" In the alcove across from his own there was suddenly a red ball, a hoop, a flag, a wooden sword-

"Papa! Papa! Stop! Stop!" Bae cried out. He ran over to him and seized his arms. "Look what you did!"

Look at what he did! He was looking. It was wonderful and amazing, and Bae was never going to want for anything ever again!

"Papa, look at yourself…"

Finally, he saw what it was the Baelfire wanted him to see. It wasn't what he'd done around the house, it was him. His skin was darker, it glittered with more gold than it had before. It was almost scaly.

"That's the cost of magic!" Zoso hissed from the corner with a smile. "All magic comes with a price! If you don't pay one way, you'll pay another..."

"Papa…I don't want any of this." Bae drew his gaze away from the corner, where his invisible companion stood, and back toward his son. His eyes were round, but there was no fear in them anymore, only concern. He didn't want either of those emotions on his face.

"All I want is your happiness, Bae," he whispered, reaching down to place his hand over his cheek. "Tell me what you want, and it will be yours.

Bae thought for a moment, and when he looked up fear and concern had fled from his eyes. Instead, hope and ambition, two emotions he'd never known Bae to have, glittered there instead. "I want us to do what we said we would. I want to free the children and stop the ogres. I want things to go back to the way they were."

The Ogres. The children. How quickly he'd forgotten! These new powers and protecting Baelfire had been at the forefront of his mind he'd completely forgotten that they had a much bigger plan they wanted to put into place, a plan, not just to save Baelfire but all the children that had been sacrificed to the war and were approaching death without knowing it. But…back to the way they were. The ogres had invaded long before Baelfire had ever been born. Did he even know what "normal" was? Could he even keep to his promise? Was he truly powerful enough to do what Bae was asking of him? Could he be the Dark One and a hero?

In the corner, he looked up and saw Zoso standing there once more, observing the interaction. "Make a deal," he urged in a low whisper. "And you'll see just how powerful you've become."

A deal. A deal for the children's freedom…that was easy enough.

"Then we'll do it," he agreed looking down at Bae. "Tomorrow, we'll send the ogres away. The children's freedom for your happiness, Bae. Is that what you want?"

Finally, a wide smile broke across his face and Baelfire threw himself into his arms and held on tight. "That's all I want, Papa!" he exclaimed into his shirt. "Thank you."

He hugged him back as Zoso disappeared. It was a good deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold, another chapter I didn't know I needed until it was upon me...well, sort of. When I first sat down to write this chapter it was prompted only as Bae and Rumple making a deal. The prompting and notes that I had for it were mostly what you see toward the end of the chapter, it was only once I began to write it that I realized we never saw Rumple explain much to Bae. We see the end of the episode in season one, where Rumple slaughters Bae's would-be kidnappers and then the next thing we know, timeline-wise, we're into the Beowulf epic and things seem to have been explained to him, but we never saw it. The first part of this chapter, therefore, was a surprise, as I had to imagine what that conversation would look like. I don't know if you've every thought or wondered about this conversation. If you haven't, well now you've got it. If you have, I hope I did it justice in your mind!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments and your support. I was happy to hear that you thought the last chapter was well done. I hope you don't mind my commentary on the skin color here. They never really did give us a clear mythology for why a Dark One's skin turns and changes the way it does. I went with a bit of what we saw in season five with Emma, the idea that if you don't make a deal for magic you start to show it on the outside. It's weak, I know, but as RC's makeup changed throughout the series I wanted something that was sort of...flexible? Believable? Like, during those times that he makes lots of deals and actually does some good things his skin might not be as sparkly and during the times that he uses a lot of magic for himself and doesn't make so many deals, he might look worse. Like I said, it's weak, I know, but it was the best I felt I could do. Up next we have the opportunity to see Rumple grow into his powers a bit more as he discovers a little bit more of what he can and cannot do. I hope you are excited for it. Peace and Happy Reading!


	17. Learning the Ropes

He couldn't sleep. At first, it was on purpose.

\At first, he'd sent Baelfire to bed and stayed up listening to him toss and turn and wanted to stay up just to make sure he did go to sleep. It had taken a while, but he'd finally fallen hours ago, at least if the lack of turning and light snoring he heard from the loft above him was any indication. With permission to finally rest himself, however, he found that he remained awake, tossing and turning himself, trying to get comfortable but never quite able. The voices in his head…they were whispering, urging, ordering, insisting, laughing, joking, taunting, screaming-

"Sleep well?"

Zoso was before him; sitting at the table, leaning down and pressing his face close to his. His smile was anything but friendly.

"I'm trying!" he growled, attempting to shut the voice out and lay on his back. Zoso chuckled.

"And a valiant effort you are making. But listen to the voices in your head Rumpelstiltskin…Dark One's don't sleep."

His eyes shot open. For the first time since he'd laid down, he noticed how wide awake he was. For the first time, he listened to the whispers, to the words they were saying. Suddenly he knew Zoso's words were true.

"Not at all?" he questioned, shocked by the revelation. No more sleep. Not ever?! In theory that didn't sound so bad. When he was a spinner desperate to make as much money as he could, he could have used that little ability, but…to never dream again? To never close his eyes and let his mind take him far away from this dull place, on a wild adventure he'd never been brave enough to take in his life…suddenly he felt melancholy wash over him. No more dreams.

"Fret not, Rumpelstiltskin," Zoso answered. "Dark One's don't need sleep the same way they don't need food, but that didn't stop you from eating dinner with your son tonight."

No more sleep, no more food. He didn't need any of it, but he found himself wanting it all the same. And dinner tonight had tasted great in a way he hadn't known food could taste. So did that mean that one day he would sleep again?

"One day, perhaps," Zoso muttered. "But for now I think you'll find yourself quite consumed by the voices you hear. There is always work to be done, Rumpelstiltskin. You might consider taking up a hobby, or better yet, trying to figure out how you will best the ogres tomorrow."

How to best the ogres? Wasn't it as easy as a flick of his wrist? Like today was?

"Today you stole food off the tables of others," Zoso hissed. "You took toys and clothes to suit your own needs, but I think you'll find there are limitations to your magic. You cannot just wish the ogres out of existence or murder them with a twirl of your hand, and you cannot just send them anywhere…always be smart about your decisions. Have you even thought of how you plan to arrive on the battlefield tomorrow? You can't arrive at a place you have not seen."

Right. The only way he'd been able to come back here after that vault he'd gone to was because he recognized home. How was he to travel there if he had never seen it?

"Use a person…" He glanced over at Zoso and found a small girl sitting there. She was so young her feet didn't even touch the floor as she sat on the bench. They swung back and forth, childlike, but her smile was too sweet to be a child's. And her skin, it was dark and speckled like his own. It was startling. Had someone this young ever been the Dark One?

She giggled suddenly and her smile grew as she leaned forward. "And we were good at it too!"

His heart was racing. He had to remind himself that he possessed the power now, the girl was no longer in existence, at least nowhere outside his own head. A good thing to, small as she was and powerful as he knew he was, she was terrifying.

He put the girl out of his mind and focused instead on what she'd said. Use a person. Was it possible to picture a person on the battlefield and go to them that way? Yes. It was. He knew it was. But…the only person he would have known on the battlefield was currently upstairs sleeping safe and sound.

"If only you'd known another…" Zoso taunted, sitting where the girl had been.

He had a memory in his head, one that didn't belong to him and yet he could see himself in it all the same, standing to the side, his blurred image clutching Baelfire close. They were fuzzy because they were not the important part of the memory. It was the girl that he saw being dragged onto the horse, a hand was raised, and he could feel the parent's throats closing. He was a fair distance from it all, but he could hear their sputtering as Hordor rode off with Morraine. They'd gone to a battlefield, a vast open space he'd never been to before.

Suddenly he lost sight of Morraine as the memory shifted.

_It was dark. He was walking through that same field. It was littered with bodies and the grass was wet, but it was a clear sky. By the moon's light he could see the black wet that covered once green grass. It wasn't water or rain. It was blood. It was everywhere. And deep within him stirred a feeling of regret and sadness. He wanted to fix it, to use his magic despite the voices telling him his heart was growing weak and soft. He could do it. Without the Duke's knowledge, he could so easily fix all of this and never look back. The Duke couldn't demand he turn back time, there were limits to his power just as much as the genie he'd used to get into his position and wish the dagger into his hands. But when he looked at his scaled fingers, the black of his nails…there were other ways to do this. A moan next to him had him seeking out the living being laying on the field. He was dying, so close to death and he could fix it, if only…_

_"Make a deal with me!" he demanded, grabbing the man's collar and shaking him. "Ask me to stop this war, and in return, I'll spare your life! Do it! Make a deal!"_

_But the man suddenly went limp in his hands. Dead men didn't deal._

The memory ended there, and he stared at Zoso, sitting across from him. He stared back. He knew whose memory he'd been in, he was daring him to say something about it. But he couldn't. Not when he had other problems to worry about.

"That's good!" Zoso encouraged. "Always focus on the problem at hand and use what you have to your advantage to solve it."

He had a memory that wasn't his by inheritance, it was of the battlefield. He'd seen it clearly and could easily recall it. That was how he'd get there. But how to stop the ogres…

He couldn't send them anywhere, at least nowhere that he knew of, they'd only return, and they'd be in this same mess all over again. He had to kill them. But how. He knew Zoso was right, he couldn't just wish them away, he had to do something. Kill them. But how?

"Use what you have."

This time it was another man, one he didn't know sitting where Zoso and the girl once had. Roonil. Use his memories.

_Before him was a field far different than the one he'd seen in Zoso's memory. Beside him a girl in a yellow dress held his hand and giggled as they ran through the tall grass and purple flowers. It was a perfect day, until-_

_His beloved tripped over something. She was always clumsy, and he laughed at her, reaching down to help her up until he saw that she hadn't tripped over a log, just something the size of a log. It was a leg. An ogre! It lay there in the field! It was dead. They tread lightly, frightfully as they examined the body. The orange dust of pollen from the purple flower was smeared around its nose._

The purple flower! It was poison to the ogres. He knew it was, there was a memory of another Dark One using it in a mash to allow a boy to fell an ogre and steal back his golden goose.

But how would he get the flower? It wasn't something he'd ever seen in this land before. But he knew it lived in the other land. He could see it in that field just as he'd seen the roast chicken sitting on a table. Perhaps he could…

In a haze of purple smoke and a light "poof" the purple flower was suddenly laid out perfectly on the table before him. He rushed out of bed to examine it. It was perfect. It would do the trick.

Zoso, now on the other side of the room, laughed. "For one ogre maybe! Do you know how many there are out there? Entire hoards are massing. You're going to need a lot more flowers before you can defeat all of them. What, do you plan to do now Rumpelstiltskin?"

More flowers. He needed more flowers to beat them. Perhaps he could summon the entire field. Or maybe…

Maybe he just needed one and a bit of his own knowledge. He thought of his own rising just the night before. Sometimes, in order to grow, things had to die first.

He let his hand hover over the flower for a moment, his intent was so clear he could see it happen before it did happen. The flower began to wither into blackness. It shrank and shriveled until it turned to dust and what he was left with were a few seeds. He picked them up in his hand amazed at what a little bit of magic had left him with. He hadn't even broken a sweat! And now…

After a quick glance to be sure Baelfire was still asleep he raced outside, thankful for the darkness that concealed him from his sleeping neighbors. He didn't need a torch anymore to see, he'd known that before he stepped outside and hadn't grabbed one but that didn't mean he didn't rejoice a little in the wonder of seeing everything clear in the darkest part of the night.

He found a good place in the brush just beyond his house and dropped the seeds into the ground. With a wave of his hand, four more purple flowers burst forth from the ground. And with another wave, they left behind seeds of their own. He did it again, this time producing sixteen blooming flowers that withered and died leaving behind even more precious seeds. It took only seconds, and he had hours until Bae would wake.

He had an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, don't panic. I am very much aware that this is not how we saw Rumple kill the ogres in 6x13. We will get to the way that he ends up doing it, fret not, but I wanted a chapter like this first. I wanted us to see him plan and see him begin to use his magic. I wanted us to begin to see he's getting better at using other memories of the Dark Ones to his advantage. And I also wanted to get into the idea that not every Dark One is 100% Dark. Here we see Zoso, in his memories the Dark One Collective thinks he's gone weak but really he just can't bear to watch it anymore and hates what the duke is making him do. Rumple isn't the first to use it for good and he won't be the last. Fun fact, you've also heard the tale of the little girls who became the Dark One before, at least you did if you read Moments. Belle reads about them and their story made into her fiction. I really wanted to incorporate them in some way. I'm loving the idea that the deeper he gets into this the more he sees. And the fact that Emma didn't see them? Only saw Rumple? That just tells you how much she resisted.
> 
> Thank you, RolfB for your beautiful comments of the last chapter. I'm so thrilled that we're liking it! Now, before we get into the next chapter, part of the Beowulf section, I think I need to give a PSA, like I did in the previous fiction, just for those that didn't read it because I don't want to have to deal with this criticism. Why do the two boys look so different? We're about to get into the Beowulf section and there is no denying that the Baelfire there looks older than the Bealfire we just came from. Well, there's a very easy answer for all of that. Because they are different! TV is different than written fiction, especially on a show when random flashbacks occur at any time at will. I know Baelfire looks different. I know that he looks a lot older in this episode than he does in the episode from the first season that supposedly happened immediately before this and will look younger again when, towards the end of the fiction, we return to the season one Baelfire. I'm going to ask you to ignore that. Pretend they didn't need so many actors over so many years to portray Baelfire and just pretend it's one person. I come up with a lot of explanations for the show in these fictions, some that might not even need explanations in the first place, but the issue of the different actors isn't going to be one of them. Rumple isn't going to have Baelfire drink a special potion or glamour him, for this one thing I just need everyone to accept the actors are different and move on. Peace and Happy Reading.


	18. Knowing the Unknown

He had never felt this way in all his life. The fear he'd felt before battle, the nerves before he'd attempted to kill Fendrake, even the happiness that he felt when he'd first spun wool into useable thread; all paled in comparison to this feeling. In fact, the power he'd felt when he'd first overwhelmed Hordor and his goons felt like nothing next to what he felt now.

Important.

He'd never been important before. Not to Milah, not to his father, not to the King's army. He'd felt important to his aunts and knew that he was important to Bae, but this was different. He was important because he'd made himself so. And it was such an easy feat to achieve!

He'd saved the children without breaking a sweat, by sneaking into the Ogre's Camps. He spread the seeds of the flowers everywhere and used his magic to help them bloom overnight to produce their peak amount of pollen, then hid himself and waited. The first time had been the most risky, without a doubt. Not only had it been the battlefield where children from his village had been taken, but he'd also brought Baelfire with him into enemy territory, a decision he regretted as they worked together while the ogres slept. But come morning he'd taken Bae and hid them both nearby and watched as the ogres rose for battle. It wasn't long before the brutes got the pollen on their skin, wiped it with their giant hands, then moved their hands stupidly over their faces, spreading it further. The poison found within the pollen took an hour to start effecting them, and at first, it seemed like nothing; some staggering here and there, something that simply made them look dizzy. Bae panicked. When the sun rose, and they collected their clubs at the sound of the King's cannons he began to think that it wasn't enough. Bae was restless, desperate to pick up a sword and forge into battle himself and he truly couldn't blame him. As he watched them head out to battle he found himself doubting his own plan and fearing for the children who were dressed in oversized black clothes and lined up on the opposite side of the battlefield.

"Bea, no!" he'd screamed, running after him after he'd spotted Morraine. But just before he could catch him, he stopped. There was a loud groan from the early morning mist, and finally, the ground shook. An ogre fell to his knees, dead. Then another. And another and another and one by one the creatures fell before them and breathed their last. And there he was, with Baelfire, a victor.

Morraine had rushed upon Bae when she spotted him. She threw herself into his arms and the children cheered. He led them triumphantly off the field and returned them to the village, and suddenly…he was a hero. Baelfire beamed as Morraine's parents embraced her and parent after parent fell to their knees, offered small bows, or in the case of one grateful woman, even hugged him!

"Thank you! Thank you, Rumpelstiltskin!" they breathed with tears in their eyes and their babies in their arms. They all had eyes, they could all clearly see what had become of him, what he was now. But it didn't stop their gratitude and though the voices in his head called him a fool for letting himself be moved, he felt immune to their chides. He was a hero. Finally, Hordor's words on the road that day were proved wrong. It was because of him so many ogres were dead, and the children were alive.

"The pleasure was all mine!"

Maybe it was too much pleasure, or he was having too much fun with this, but when he'd answered them he'd answered with a grand voice, an accent like one of the voices that whispered in his head, and he'd taken a large flourishing bow. It was odd. But he didn't stop to care. He enjoyed his welcome, he enjoyed watching those who had once chastised him practically weep with joy because of his actions. He enjoyed seeing Baelfire beam with pride. Being the Dark One was the best decision he'd ever made.

Until two weeks later, when word reached them that another battle had claimed the lives of several hundred soldiers and the high he'd felt from his victory suddenly began to die away. The war wasn't over, only the battle. There were more to spare.

"We'll fix it, Bae! What do you say? You and me? We'll go to every war zone. We'll stop every battle! We'll end this war for good! Not just for the children!"

Baelfire's sad frown slowly became a smirk, then a smile. "Let's go!"

And so they had.

It took months; months of scheming, of moving, months of infiltrating army bases, learning plans then growing, killing, and regrowing so many flowers he would have thought it was impossible to keep track, but a voice in his head told him it was two million eight hundred thousand and seventy-four. But they did it. After each success he traveled to a different town near the front lines, towns so ravaged by war he could hardly tell a difference between their town and his own. He infiltrated the camps for information. Soon enough he was able to steal clothes to help himself blend in as well as a sheath, which he magically enchanted to fit the dagger so that it was properly hidden on him.

He always took Bae with him. And with each trip he saw the trust in his son's eyes begin to grow as they camped out and stayed at various inns when they could for Bae's protection. He was changing just as he was, but in ways that he suspected were less obvious.

"Why do you sound different now, Papa?" he asked one night as he tucked him into bed before going to the base camp near the mountains. In his pocket were the seeds he needed to do his work.

"I do?" he questioned sitting close to him. "I don't mean to sound different."

"Your voice, it's rougher, more gravely than before. You almost seem to growl sometimes."

He beamed. "Growl, you say? Maybe it's just because I've become as fierce as a lion!" he declared straightening his back and presenting himself with a puffed out chest. He'd meant to make Bae laugh and he had succeeded. He felt important.

"No more than you've always been!" he laughed. I'm proud of you Papa! You are doing great things! Things I always knew you could do!"

He nodded in agreement. When he was out there, on those battlefields or among the smiling parents and thankful wives, he felt the same.

"This magic is the best thing that ever happened to us, Bae."

"It's not the magic Papa; it's you! I always knew you were brave and good and now everyone knows it too."

That they did. And though the voices screamed in his ear day and night that he should be more careful, that he shouldn't let others see his face or what he could do, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what was so awful about accepting the thanks he had coming his way. Was it humble? No, not in the least, he understood that. But after years of being shamed and tormented for his cowardice, it was good to hear that he was making a name for himself as a brave man, a savior of sorts to the nation.

Finally, the day came that he and Bae arrived at what he knew to be the last of the villages that needed rescuing. It was by far the worst, a very active war zone. It was the front that had managed to hold out the longest in the war though by the look of things in the camp they wouldn't be for much longer. The front was exactly as he remembered it. Dark, loud, and terrifying. But his job was easy. He walked carefully through the ogre's camp, doing his work of dropping seeds, growing them to produce more seeds, then growing those seeds into a fine group of flowers. He grew the patches strategically so that when the ogres woke they couldn't avoid the pollen. They'd wipe it off their bellies, arms, and legs, then eventually wipe their noses or touch their eyes, maybe even wipe their mouths. At that point, it was just a matter of time, an hour, until they would begin to fall down dead. By morning, when the army came charging through here, they'd have only two or three of the demons to deal with themselves before they'd find him and he would happily declare the war was over. He'd be a hero once more.

"Dark Ones aren't heroes!" Zoso hissed beside him, angry at his thoughts once more. He ignored the anger and continued to do his work.

"Maybe none of the Dark Ones up until now were heroes, but it's different with me, I've got my boy."

He laughed. "You don't think we've known what it's like to be parents, to have children?"

Zoso went on, but he didn't listen, he was suddenly too distracted and terrified by the sounds that he heard. There was a horn in the distance and a sound that belonged not out there but in the ogre camp. It was an ogre's call! They were calling them to battle but-

To his horror the call did its job. All around him sleeping ogres began to rouse and stand. One caught sight of him, and he quickly pictured himself up and safe on a distant rock, and it was so. But there was a problem. Another horn sounded, but this one he knew the meaning of all too well of from training. It was the signal to charge. And the shouts that he heard afterward confirmed it. They were going to battle now?!

He looked into the sky as if expecting to see the light of day or the lights of the city to suggest morning was closer than he thought but he was right. It was still night time! The fools had charged into battle too early! He could see the ogres from his vantage point, his plan was working. He recognized the orange pollen smeared on their large bellies and on their hands and weapons, their eyes, mouth, and nose…but it wasn't enough time! The pollen took an hour to be effective! This was only minutes!

He panicked as he watched them on the field. These soldiers were not children, he'd liberated those by now, these were men. Full-grown men and part of him wanted to turn and just let the soldiers go to their death for their own stupidity. But Baelfire was back in the village, sleeping soundly at the inn, counting on him to end this war. And he knew that leaving even the smallest pocket of ogres alive, when a village filled with women and children lay not five miles from this place was irresponsible.

He stepped forward, preparing to enter the battlefield, but the sound of screams stopped him. A plan. He needed a new plan, but what? It had taken him a full night to come up with this one! Now he was certain he had only a few minutes.

"Tell me what to do!" he demanded, turning back to Zoso who was watching the chaos unfold before him as if it were a child's game of kick-the-ball.

"Who says anything can be done?"

He did. He knew there was something he could do. He could feel it in his bones and his fingers were itching to do it, he just didn't know what "it" was!

"The power…I can't wish them away or wish them dead, but there must be something I can do. Anything!"

All at once he heard a dozen whispers in his head, each with a single united plan. "Use the dagger." He had to do something, but it would require strong magic, and strong magic required the dagger he had in his belt. He knew it without ever learning it.

"Fairies have wands to do great magic, but you have the dagger," Zoso hissed as he pulled it free of his sheath and held it in his hands. He didn't know what he was doing, but he trusted those voices in his head, he trusted his body to know what it was supposed to do with the dagger in his hand, and found himself standing in the field among bodies and blood and ogres. He was supposed to use the dagger, but how?

"What a fire they have in their souls!" Zoso declared before him. "And what a fire their bones make."

Yes. He knew that. He knew that the bones of ogres were highly flammable, he'd never made a potion, but he knew the dust of ogres bones was used in potions. Several Dark Oness before him had used their bones for that purpose, including the girl he now saw smiling beside him in Zoso's place. "Wouldn't it be lovely if that fire actually burned inside of him?" she questioned, pointing to one particular ogre who seemed to be having fun with the humans he was destroying beneath his feet.

Yes. Yes, it would be lovely. So he imagined it. He held the dagger out in front of him, not up like a fairy's wand, but to the side. And then he lit a fire inside of him, he used the dagger to channel a spark, to place it inside the ogres' body.

Nothing happened.

"Stronger!" the girl hissed, standing beside him and reaching out to place her hand over his own. "You need to want it more! To be angrier! Anger fuels fire! Don't you remember how it felt to kneel at the feet of a lesser being and kiss his boot? How it felt to wonder if your child was your own? Don't you remember the feeling of that shadow as it pried you from your father's grip in Neverland and he rejoiced at finally being free of you?"

He screamed. Of course, he remembered. He remembered all of it. His heart raced as his hand tightened over the dagger and he felt as though his face must have been red from the effort. But the moment he screamed the ogre he'd been focusing on in front of him stopped moving on the dead soldiers around him. He began to glow orange, and then, with a loud boom, his body broke into a million pieces, shriveling up until it was dust. There wasn't a single piece of him that reigned down on the field, it was as if he was just gone. And he was pleased.

That feeling of pride and happiness he'd felt just after Hordor had died returned and he looked up around him at what he'd done only to discover that it was just one ogre. There were no less than two dozen left here, including the general. His hand was shaking over the dagger as his confidence grew and he remembered that all had been fine in his life until this bloody Ogres War, until they had invaded and made him a coward, destroying his marriage, haunting his son. What turns would his life have taken if they had never invaded? He'd kill them all, one by one. Anger fueled fire…and he had plenty of anger to go around.

It was a long battle, the ogres trampled and killed nearly every soldier there in the time it took for him to finish the job. They were idiots for trying to attack them in the dark, but at least he could rest easily knowing the village would be safe and the war over, for good. And on the field, he did manage to save one man.

The ogre general had attempted to kill him, knocked him over, separated him from his weapon and what he felt inside as he raised the dagger and burned the fire wasn't anger, not any longer, though there was still plenty of it. It was pride. It was the same feeling he had just after he'd killed the soldiers. Joy. Happiness. Pride. Accomplishment. He smiled as the creature became nothing more than a million tiny pieces, just like the others. The soldiers had fought for decades with swords and shields, catapults, fire, canons…he'd done what they had never managed in seconds with magic. How could he not smile at his work?

Even as the man he'd saved had stared up at him in fear, there was a noise to his left. The general was dead, but he could hear the last of them coming in now to "finish the job".

"Sense them" Zoso whispered with urgency. He'd never done this before, but he knew exactly what to do. He held out his dagger and felt the leather of the boots he wore, he felt the grass beneath them and the dirt beneath it. He extended his power, sensing the movement through the ground and the pads of the beasts' feet. They were just barely visible, even to him, beyond the tree line, but it was enough.

He did it all over again. One, two, three, four, boom after boom after boom until the roars stopped, the ground ceased it's shaking, and he beamed once more, holding the dagger in his hand. The soldier he'd saved still looked shocked, perhaps even scared, but he couldn't stop smiling. The silence made him put his hand to his ear, mocking like he was listening for something when he knew there was nothing to hear but the perfect sound of silence and death. He'd done it.

"I killed all of them," he stated.

He was so giddy he laughed. But it wasn't a laugh like he'd ever given before, it was one that he recognized from his past. It was the laugh his father gave whenever he'd successfully swindled someone or had had an exciting idea. Ordinarily, the thought that he might sound like his father may disgust him, but he was too impressed with himself to care. Besides, he liked it. If this was what his father had felt every time he made the noise, he'd been a happier man than he'd ever thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the ogres are dead with a little bit of brainpower and a lot of magic.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments about the last chapter. I hope you are liking how the Dark One Curse is taking root in Rumple's brain and enjoying some of the small changes that I'm starting to add to Rumple; like the flourishing bow, the voice, even the laugh. It was fun to be able to dream up how these developments might have taken place and then even more fun to write it! And you already know that I might be enjoying bringing out the other Dark Ones inside of him a little too much. I hope you are liking it as much as I am! More Dark Ones coming up next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	19. Fame Over Power

At the urging of the Dark Ones, he stepped gleefully over the man that he'd saved and took the sword the ogres had relieved him of. They wanted it. But he wasn't sure why they wanted it until he touched it and felt it hum for himself. At his touch it grew warmer and had he been a lesser man, the sword would have burned him, but he had a feeling the fact that it didn't wasn't just because he was the Dark One. It was fairy magic, the voices told him, but he was almost certain it was his own instinct, the memory of his own magic in his body, that informed him it was powerful fairy magic. Not his mothers, he was sure. It couldn't be. The Red Fairy had told him that his mother was the Black Fairy and he knew from the tales in his village the Black Fairy had only Dark Magic, but this…this was Light Magic. The last time he'd felt this kind of magic he'd been with his Aunts, but they'd never possessed anything so powerful as this.

He wanted to discard it, but the voices insisted he keep it close, "a future insurance policy" a male voice hissed in his ear. So, instead, he kept it and walked on, ignoring the shouts of the man behind him that demanded he stop. He wasn't going to stop. He saw no reason to. This was a day to celebrate. For on this day the Ogre War which had plagued his Kingdom for decades had finally ceased! The others deserved to know.

The camp was nearly empty. They'd sent almost every soldier into battle and were left now only with a few; those who were injured and had returned as well as a few of the higher officials and generals. No matter their rank, nearly all of them jumped when he came out of the shadows.

"What are you?" one of them dared to ask.

 _"Don't answer!"_ the voices screamed. _"It's too dangerous! Be smart! Flee! For your sake and the boy's!"_

But it was the thought of his boy that made the smile on his face grow. He was back at the inn waiting for news, and this was the final battle! He wanted all to hear the news and be glad, but mostly he wanted Bae to know.

"I'm a wizard of course!" he exclaimed with a grand sweeping gesture, attempting to present himself with all the flair a wizard of his talent should. "Rumpelstiltskin, the Great and Powerful! And with my magic, I have slain the beasts! Your war…is over!"

With a declaration like that he expected cheers; he thought there would be whoops and hollers and shouts of rejoicing! But instead, they all stood there, simply staring at him as if he'd just spoken some strange foreign language. All but one, who's eyes widened as they fell over what was in his hand.

"Hrunting…that's Beowulf's sword!" he exclaimed taking steps forward as if to grab it. He stopped short and swallowed nervously instead. "Please, sir…is he…"

Dead? He was a friend wanting to know if he had been killed. And for that he had even more good news.

"I believe I left him alive in the field, cowering before relieving him of this…gem!" he explained holding the sword up into the light. "Beowulf's his name, you say-"

"It's over! General, it's over!" there was a noise of hurried footsteps behind him and then before him, as suddenly a soldier ran into the camp nearly breathless. "It's confirmed! The ogres are dead! All of them! I've seen their camp, Sir! They are no more!"

Every wide eye around the campfire looked in his direction and he let his smile grow once again, though this time it was pride that did it. He had been right. They hadn't believed him. But now they had to.

What followed was the celebration he had initially expected. There were cheers and shouting. The men stepped forward and slapped his shoulders one even hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks. He was so startled he didn't have any time to react to that one. As for the rest of it, well, it was hard not to get caught up in the celebration, it was hard not to feel like he'd gone back into time to the way things should have been and that he had finally won the Ogre War with his own troop instead of being the sole survivor. In their celebration, they left their camp, ammo, supplies, armor, and all and carried their celebration into town, into one of the taverns nearby. They told everyone they met on the streets the war was over, that it was won. They screamed his name at the top of their lungs, and he reveled in it even as something inside of him flinched each time they said it. Finally, they arrived at a tavern, where one of the soldiers kicked in the door so hard it couldn't be closed right and screamed, "The war is won! Drinks all around!"

A proclamation like the latter was bound to get cheers even if it hadn't been proceeded by the former, but this excitement certainly did seem a bit more noisy than the other times he'd been in a tavern for victorious announcements. And it was for him. All for him! For the ogres that he'd slaughtered and the Kingdom he'd saved. The men introduced him and soon he was able to easily block out the voices in his mind telling him to leave and hide. It was easy when so many had good things to say about him.

"To you Rumpelstiltskin!" one of them shouted lifting his stein. "Hero of the Ogres War!"

The men joined in their shouts of joy and raised their glasses before drinking deeply. He didn't drink. He didn't think he could manage to keep it down with his smile. Not to mention the feeling he had inside of him made his stomach feel like it was hanging upside-down. The drink didn't appeal, but the fame did.

"Is it true, Papa?" he turned instantly toward the voice he recognized standing in the doorway. Bae. He'd left him to sleep at the inn, and hadn't expected to see him until morning, but apparently, along with the rest of the village pouring in to celebrate, he'd heard the truth. "You really defeated the ogres?"

Probably, the right thing for a father to do would be to chastise his son for getting up in the middle of the night and leaving on his own to find him in a strange city's tavern. But when he looked at his son, he could feel his smile turn into a beam. Now he knew what his reason to smile was. It was the proud look in his son's eyes. It was the look of hopefulness. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen that look in his eyes before. And he certainly couldn't remember a time he deserved to see it more than this!

"Aye, Baelfire! It is!" he roared, pulling the dagger free from the sheath he'd crafted for it. "I told you this dagger would change our lives! Now no one else has to die!"

All around him were cheers, but they all vanished the moment Bae launched himself into his arms. He'd done it. He was happy again! Their deal was kept, the finishing of the war for his happiness! He'd do it a thousand times over if he had to! He'd slaughter a million more if it made Bae happy.

"Why are you cheering that monster?"

Bae pushed himself out of his arms and they turned to face the man who had just come into the room demanding answers. Not a man. Or at least not an ordinary man. He recognized this one. This was the man from the glade. It was the soldier he'd saved from the ogres. He was here now, staring him down, spoiling their fun.

_Inappropriate._

_Ungrateful._

_Scum._

_Slime._

_Unworthy._

He was going to enjoy this.

"Beowulf!" he greeted before picking up the sword he'd gathered before he'd left. "You left this at the front." The others laughed at him as he pointed it in his direction, and the soldier winced a bit, prepared to move should the battle require it. It was nice to have that reaction. It was nice enough that despite the yearnings of the other Dark One's, begging him to run him through and remind him who was in control by keeping his Fairy Sword, he was content to live with that one reaction. He let the tip of the sword drop harmlessly to the ground and held it out for him to take. He stepped forward and snapped it up.

"Rumpelstiltskin, you've changed, since you hobbled yourself to escape the war. How did a coward, who ran from the war, manage to defeat an entire army of ogres?"

He didn't like his questions. He didn't like his interrogations. And most of all he didn't like his knowledge. This man was younger than he was, younger than Hordor had been! How did he know his past? And what was he trying to prove through his questioning? That he had magic? Everyone knew that. They need only look at him and they'd see the curse he'd taken on. And yet…that curse wasn't the reasoning behind why he'd done this. It was Bae.

He extended his arm to hold his son close to him once more. "I had something worth fighting for!"

"I know how!" he stated. "You became the Dark One."

_Fool!_

_Idiot!_

_No better than Zoso!_

_Protect your power or lose it!_

The voices roared in his mind with fear and panic, but the room got suddenly very silent.

"But all magic comes with a price! We'll pay dearly for this. All of us!" Beowulf turned to go out the door.

"Go! Zoso urged suddenly appearing at his side. "He knows too much!"

Despite his warnings, conversation began in the tavern again, and he tightened his grip on the dagger and went after him as the Dark One commanded. The voices were right, he knew too much. The ungrateful bastard! He'd saved him from a terrible death he thought he could unmask him! Just like that proclaim he was-

"Papa!" Bae's voice stopped him before he could leave.

"Ignore him and go!" Zoso shouted in his ear. "If you don't, you'll regret it!"

Ignore Baelfire. The thought cleared his head. How could he ignore his son? His father's laugh, the one he'd given on his field echoed in his memory. He may have inherited his father's laugh, his looks, maybe even some of his father's flair for the dramatic, but he wasn't about to become his father and ignore his boy!

"You will regret this if you don't go after him!" Zoso growled again.

Maybe. But he knew he'd regret it more if he walked away from Bae.

"Don't listen to him, Bae!" he exclaimed, doing his best to continue in the lies that he'd told, pretending to be the great wizard he'd spoken of and not the cursed man he was. Maybe, if he used the curse for good, he really could come to be known as a wizard. "He's just jealous."

"Maybe, Papa," Bae answered as he made his way back over to him. "But he's right about magic. The war's over, you don't need it anymore!"

He glanced down at the dagger in his hands. Hadn't they discussed this already? Hadn't they already talked about how there was no way other than death to shed this skin? And why would he want to after all the good he'd done with it? Who knew what good he could do in the future.

"I can't just give it up, Bae! It's part of me now!"

"That's not true!" Bae declared. "Beneath those scales, you're still my Papa! You don't need the dagger anymore."

But without the dagger…he could still do magic. Perhaps not magic that was called Dark One Magic, but he could still manage great things with it, all the same. There was always a loophole. This wasn't lying, not the way his father did to him, this was just…looking at things another way!

"Alright, son!" he sheathed the dagger in his belt. "No more magic!" he declared. Bae smiled and he rubbed his shoulder. "Let's go home!"

No more magic. At least no Dark One magic, as he'd requested. He'd find a safe place to hide the dagger, though he knew finding the right spot could very well take months, maybe even years. And in that time, there was still plenty to learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you know, a filler chapter inside of a seen scene! That doesn't happen very often, but I feel like it happened here. This chapter mainly exists to explore the sword and see just how much Rumple is enjoying himself now that he is the Dark One. It also, of course, shows just how much of an effect that Baelfire and love has on the curse. What would have become of Beowulf if Baelfire hadn't been there to say "hey why don't you leave him alone"? The world may never know.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter! Wow! I'm so glad you are liking this! I hope that I can continue in that trend. I do love the next chapter. Nimue gets a nice mic drop moment that I think you'll enjoy before we come back to the story of Beowulf and his sword! Peace and Happy Reading!


	20. Magical Basics

No more dagger. He'd promised Bae, there would be no more dagger, no more Dark One Magic. He'd promised even knowing the loophole. Still, for a time, he had tried to keep that promise completely.

When he and Baelfire returned home, all was fine for a while. He found that news of the Ogre's War end had spread far and wide. Everyone seemed to know that it was him who had become the Dark One and then saved them all. It was good, he thought, it would help to make things easier on Bae. It would help to make things easier on him as he made the transition. And it did. For a long while, all was as it hadn't been for ages. He took up his spinning again and sent Bae out into the fields to collect the wool for him just as he had when he was a boy. There was money to put food on the table, not just in their hovel but in all the homes. The sky had once more turned blue, the grass was turning green again, and the sound of children playing outside was growing once more. But he soon learned that some growth was temporary, for other things were growing too.

Much to the disgust of the voices in his head, the news that he had become the Dark One had gotten out. It seemed there was truth to the idea of "strength in numbers". Out around people, those in his village didn't seem to mind him or his appearance. But if he met them alone on the road or stopped to say something to an individual it was a different story entirely. They cast their eyes down and gave him weak nervous smiles. Their sentences, he noticed, were small as possible, giving only the words that were required to answer his questions and not draw the conversations out. The more he went to town, the more he noticed that as the story of his heroism began to fade, the more he would receive weary side looks from afar. People crossed the street to be farther away from him and sped away. They looked at him like he was some kind of an infection, one that could easily destroy them all in a matter of seconds if he chose. "And how ironic," Zoso pointed out to him in the middle of the street once, "you can!"

At the hiss he'd quickly jumped and then picked himself up so that he could race back home and pretend the thought had never entered his head, but he couldn't pretend like the looks of those around him were the only strange things he'd felt growing.

His fingers itched. And twitched. All the time. When he spun thread, when he cooked dinner, when he sold his goods, cleaned the house, walked down the street, and lay awake in bed…itching and twitching all day and all night long. It was as though the power within him was building like water behind a dam, and it was desperate to get out of him. Finally, there came the night, as Bae slept soundly in his loft overhead and he lay there with his eyes open praying for release, that he simply could no longer continue to ignore what was within him. Giving in, he'd pushed himself out of bed. He knew what he was going to do, probably because he'd always known this day was coming, and he had a plan for it.

The house was in a sorry state from the last time he'd seen it, before Bae had been born, just before he'd gone off to war. In some ways, he was surprised to see that no one had taken up residence in it and instead it sat empty, in other ways he wasn't surprised at all. Who would want to live in the house of suspected witches? Even witches as kind as his aunts had been.

After his aunts had died, he'd done his best to maintain the property, but once his leg had been mangled the trek to get here made it difficult to fulfill those promises. Now the roof was caved in, as was part of one of the back walls, the front door had fallen off one of its hinges, and grass that was knee-high had grown up around him so that it was difficult to see the ruins. He knew he'd made a promise to Baelfire, but he'd made a promise to his aunts as well, and he figured, maybe just this once…

He let the power course through him, channeling instructions from those whispers who were sometimes friends and sometimes enemies, then held up his hand and watched as time-reversed. The grass sank to a reasonable height. The rocks and stones that made up the back wall lifted themselves, falling magically back into place as the mortor grew strong again. The roof followed constructing itself back over the domain without a thatch out of place. Finally, the door…it righted itself with only a twitch and when he approached, he saw the hinge had fixed itself. Perfect. It was the perfect replica of the home he'd grown up in. The only thing missing was two aunts waddling outside with open arms demanding he tell them of their day.

With that memory playing in his head, he took a deep breath, then moved forward.

Inside the house, he found his magic had done what his aunt had never been able to do. The house was clean, spotless, really. There was no dust on the hearth, no cobwebs in the corners, or debris on the floor. There was just a fire lit in the hearth, illuminating a house that hadn't been a home for a long time. And he could feel it as he walked around. He could feel the memories that crept up on him as he looked over the stack of three bowls in the corner. He remembered being tucked into the little bed in the back he now sat on. He remembered the space his wheels had taken up along the now empty floor, and the miles and miles of yarn and thread that had once dangled from the walls. He'd taken those things with him when he left, and their absence now rang out pure and clear in his mind, nearly as loud as the voices in his head. They were safe. They were still just as loved in his own home now as when they'd been in this house. But there was something that he'd left behind, something that he needed to find, to help him with the sensations that were broiling inside of him.

He remembered just where they were stored. They weren't out in the open or hidden anywhere obvious; his aunts were always convinced that if anyone found them it would have meant their death and knowing the people around here they were probably right. So they lay in the ground, buried beneath the rock and wood he stood upon. Two steps from the fireplace, one toward the place the wheels would have been, and he felt the small hallow place beneath the floor. With a wave of his hand, the board snapped and floated aside just as easy as the stone beneath it did and laying there, just as he always recalled, were three large spellbooks.

His aunts had magic. He'd always known it just as well as they did, but he rarely saw them use it. They believe in doing things the right way, the slow way, they believed in staying hidden for his sake and never giving the villagers reason to doubt them. He'd only seen these books are a few special occasions and that was why he needed them now. In the spirit of his aunts, this was a special occasion. And really, learning by paging through these books would undoubtedly be considered "the slow way". At least that was what the voices inside were telling him.

"And tell us, Rumpelstiltskin, what is it exactly do you think those books will help you with that we will not?"

It was unexpected. Up until this point the voices in his head had just been loud annoyances and Zoso had been an unwelcome guide, but suddenly he felt something stir down in his soul that made Zoso more. It was his jealousy. Zoso was jealous. The other Dark Ones chattering away were jealous of the books in his hands, and he could feel it! But he couldn't understand it. They wanted him to use magic, didn't they? They were the ones responsible for the urgings to do it that he felt in his fingertips. Why would wanting to learn more of it, aside from Dark One magic, make them jealous?

"Because you are the Dark One!" Zoso hissed angrily. "You've no need to be turning to petty witch magic when you have that dagger! It's the answer to all your problems!"

"Bae doesn't want me to use it!"

"And you intend to listen to your child? Who is the parent, Rumpelstiltskin?"

"We made a deal!"

The Dark One's flinched. Zoso reared back as though he'd been stung but said not a word. He could feel something, something strange, like invisible bonds, wrapped around his body at the mention of their deal. They knew just as well as he did; deals were not to be broken. But even if they were, he still didn't see the harm in this. Magic was magic, was it not?

"Magic is light and dark!" Zoso snapped quickly. "You are Darkness, what is in those books may not be."

Light magic. He was afraid he was going to use Light Magic. His argument made little sense. They wanted him to be the Dark One, to use his magic, to understand it, but they wanted him to be blind to another side of it, to what he could do now on his own without the dagger! He was tired of them. Bored! These games were old.

"Why are you still here?" he questioned, rising to his feet with the books in his arms. "At the vault, you said you would be with me until I learned to embrace my powers. I've embraced them!"

"So you think," Zoso muttered back.

"I know," he stated confidently, setting the books aside so he could pull his dagger free. "This dagger is the best thing that ever happened to me. I've embraced it and all it is. I've become a hero now. I'm going to learn more magic. I'm going to save entire kingdoms!"

Zoso burst out in laughter. It wasn't the small chuckles he'd seen the man give since he'd met him, no, these were deep infectious belly laughs that made his stomach turn upside-down.

"That's not the purpose of the Dark One, Rumple," he corrected as he stepped forward, trying, it seemed, to catch his breath. "Dark Magic can never be used for the Light!"

Dark Magic could never be used for the Light. No. No, that wasn't true. He looked over at his aunt's spellbooks and laid a hand protectively over them. Magic was magic. He could learn what was in these books, and he could use it to his advantage, to help people to make more deals, to increase his knowledge, to help others! Hadn't he already used his magic for good? To destroy the ogres! Why was this so far-fetched?

"You're wrong!" he stated through gritted teeth. On top of the books, the hand he'd placed over them became a fist. "That's not true. I can use it for the Light, I have, and I will!"

But when he looked up, he found himself staring not into the eyes of Zoso, but rather a woman, or rather, _the_ woman. Nimue. She was the only Dark One that when she took form the other voices in his head instantly silenced and cringed at the same time.

"That's what they all say," she stated calmly before glancing at the books beside him. "But you have much yet to learn, Rumpelstiltskin. Let's see what lessons you'll glean from being on your own for a while, shall we?"

And before he could open his mouth to ask her what she was talking about, she'd vanished. But that wasn't all. Much to his shock, she'd taken the voices in his head along with her. He should have rejoiced, he should have been happy to finally be left alone. Instead, he shuddered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...true story...I might have had a little too much fun with Nimue in this fiction. She and Zoso are clearly the ones that he sees the most often but Zoso is his guide, so I really enjoyed giving Nimue more of these "mic drop" moments. I loved giving her a status like Master Dark One among the other voices. Did you notice every time she comes to the surface the others are quiet? And then you have times like this when it's meant to feel like she's the big guns. When something doesn't go the way she likes, when a Dark One is out of order or needs reasoning with, she is the one that comes forward, the others go silent, and there should be an overwhelming feeling of "oh, you're in trouble now!" I had some fun with her and imagining what role she would play in Rumple's "training".
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter! From here we really get into the 6x13 chapters. It'll help us delve into what Nimue is trying to "teach" Rumple with the removal of the voices. From there 6x13 really serves as a launching pad, I think, for the super fun chapters that come between the Beowulf Epic and Peter Pan's return. I've got some good stuff planned just stick with me for a bit! Peace and Happy Reading!


	21. A New Challenge

His intention that night at his aunt's house had been simple. He'd wanted to take the spell books and return home where he could quietly practice their magic on his own while Baelfire slept. That worked for a bit. He read the books twice, cover to cover, hiding them during the day, and reading them by the fire by night. Baelfire never knew they were in the house or that he was investigating the magic he now had, even though he was keeping his promise not to use Dark One magic. But after reading the books thoroughly, he realized that theory was no substitute for practical magic. There were spells in this book, potions, things he could make and do but required noise to be made and cooking something up that would surely smell. He couldn't do that here while Bae slept. But to leave Bae here alone in the night, even with the soldiers gone and the war over…it didn't seem right.

It was only fitting then that his first spell, the first one he actually did on his own was to create a border of detection around the hovel. It was a line, made from special dust that he found in the stores of his aunts' old cabinet. Invisible to the eye, he could feel it fine and powdered in his hand, and late that night, when everyone was asleep, he walked around the edge of his property, sprinkling the fine substance, until he'd made a complete circle. There was a small pulse of light once the circle was completed, a pulse that he expected, that the books told him meant the spell was complete. Now, no one who intended them harm would be able to cross that line. And if they tried, he would know about it. It was all invisible, but he could feel a small tether attached to his heart as he left, a tether that he knew would alert him should trouble arise. That was a handy bit of magic…and it was only his first spell.

He worked hard through the nights. In his aunt's old house, now alive with light again, he practiced doing simple things he hadn't done before. He'd used magic to send items places prior to this, now he practiced calling them into his hand: the candlestick on the mantle, the pillow off the bed, and finally ingredients from their store in the cabinet. He began mixing potions, easy ones at first: tracking potion, locator potion, sleeping potion. Then he began to move on to those that were more difficult: a forgetting potion, a truth potion, a confidence potion, and a protection potion. He bottled each of them and put them in the floorboards, the same floorboards where he'd found his aunts books, the same floorboards he'd used to hide his dagger so it wouldn't be in his hands as he worked. As he began to work with the ingredients, herbs, flowers, small trinkets made of elements, he began to develop an understanding of them, of why they were used in magic and what they could do and that was when he began to experiment.

What might happen if he added a bit of protection potion to the detection dust he'd used around the hovel? Well, for one the liquid he used caused the invisible power to turn green and chalky, then cherry blossom inside of the potion, used to bind the protected to the protector reacted badly with the wormwood infusion that was meant to hide the scent of the detection powder. It was a dud, and a small fire hazard, but he couldn't give up and back to the books he went. He found that oak ash could be substituted with cherry blossom as a binding agent, which fixed the reaction between the two ingredients, then he found a potion when promised invisibility. After he added the invisible power to the protection potion and it turned green, he formed the powder into cylindrical pieces of chalk, then added a couple of drops to them and watched as they vanished again. He set them to dry for the rest of the night and when he came back the next night found perfect hard invisible cylinders just where he'd left them. In the earliest morning hours, he tested them by going into town and drawing a line just within an alley frequented by whores and their customers. He watched for nearly an hour until a couple came by. Kissing and giggling he watched as she took his hand, headed for the ally and-

Both were knocked off their feet and back a few yards. They'd never known what hit them and were too spooked to venture further to figure it out. He was quite pleased with himself, though when he went home, he lessened the protection half of the chalk, to make it not so…ostentatious, if he used it.

What he'd use that potion on was a bit uncertain at the moment, but much to his joy he began finding other things to use the potions he crafted for. One day, when Bae came home, upset that he'd set his coin purse down somewhere and couldn't find it, he used the tracking potion and found it himself the next day. Next he used the truth potion when Bae came home from the fields and told him that the shepherd had raised his prices for wool. He'd suspected it was a lie and the fellow was just trying to pry more money from his son who was finally dressed in something more than rags for the first time in his life. He'd doubted his magic when he snuck that potion into a drink and the shepherd still swore he'd raised prices for every man, that was until he'd pressed further and asked the man if he'd ever told a lie in all his life.

"Why yes! Every day when I tell my wife she's the prettiest thing I've ever seen. It's her sister who's the real beauty." The sudden wide eyes and the way he clamped his hand over his mouth told him that he hadn't been joking, that was a piece of information that he had not wanted to share, and, fortunately, because of the memory potion he'd tried and was carrying in his satchel, he wouldn't remember sharing.

Life fell into a good and predictable routine. By night he practiced and perfected his new craft, by day he continued his work, sitting at the wheel, spinning all day long until his son came home, then they shared a meal and he told him about his day. Life was easy. The voices were quiet. Though they said nothing he knew better than to know they had gone for good. He felt sometimes like he was being watched, like they were staring at him just over his shoulder as he spun, itching to tell him to do something. But before they could there was always that woman, Nimue, holding up a halting hand and staring intently. She kept them at bay. If she hadn't, he didn't know what they might-

All at once Bae came charging in from the outside. Or at least he assumed it was Baelfire. In truth, the figure had torn in so quickly and without saying a word that he hadn't gotten a good look at him. But he was the same height and build. It just wasn't like Bae to wander in without saying anything first.

"Bae?"

From the kitchen there was the sound of things moving and water being poured. He didn't respond to his call. It was behavior not like his son's. Of course, he had noticed over the last few months he was becoming increasingly moody, it was typical of a boy his age but still…Baelfire never forgot to greet him. He moved from the spinning wheel and went to see him himself, just to be sure all was well and…

Bae hadn't poured the water to drink. He'd poured it to wash. There was a cloth in his hands and he saw him dabbing quickly at his face, trying to hide what he couldn't before he came along to see. There was mud on him. Everywhere. His hands, his face. It looked like something a child might do, like something Bae had done as a child with a proud smile! But Bae was practically a man now! He would never have done such a thing, and if he had then he wouldn't be scrubbing it off so furiously. Which meant that someone else had done it to him.

The sadness and fright in his eyes confirmed it without interrogation.

"What happened?" he questioned, staring at it. "Who did this to you? You can tell me!" he urged.

Bae cast his eyes down sadly. "The baker's son," he admitted.

The baker's son? He didn't even know the baker had a son! He'd never had any quarrels with other children before and certainly nothing against the baker! "Well, why would he do that?"

Bae was silent. He looked to be nearly on the verge of tears as he avoided his gaze. For a moment he thought that for once he might have to ask the question of him again. But one thing that hadn't changed in all of his transition was that Bae was a good boy who always did as he was told. He didn't' need to ask him again. After a moment, he saw him swallow and knew to stay silent.

"So…so I'd look like a monster," he answered.

There was more to it. He could see there was, but the moment Bae looked at him he didn't need him to tell him the rest. He understood it perfectly.

"Just like me."

He'd kept his promise. He hadn't used Dark One magic since Bae had asked him, just ordinary magic. The kind his aunts had and used. He used it all the time on his leg, but otherwise only at night, when Bae slept. But that did nothing for his appearance. His face remained greenish-gold, scaly and scary. His hair stayed greasy and wavy no matter how many times he washed and his eyes…they remained lizard-like. He'd been searching the books for an answer to his problem, for something that could help him blend in. He knew it could be done, Zoso had done it after all…but he'd been absolutely quiet since that night at his aunt's house, and he wasn't about to call him forth for this. He would keep his promise. He'd do it on his own. This, however, the sight of his son smeared with mud and on the verge of tears, nearly convinced him otherwise.

"I think it's about time I had a word with his father," he stated through clenched teeth.

"No, Papa! You'll only make things worse!" Bae cried out as he moved to leave. The daylight was fading and he didn't see how he could make things worse. He was just a father, going to tell another father to monitor his son's attitude and bullying. How would that make things worse?

But before he got to the door, he found it was pushed open. Villagers. Taneeca, a weaver from the next village over. He'd only met her a couple of times in their trade, but she stood before him, the designated spokeswoman among them.

"Rumpelstiltskin!"

"What?" he demanded suspiciously of their sudden presence. Had that boy said it was Baelfire?

"There's a creature, called a Grendel," she spoke. "He raided our village, carried our family and friends off into the darkness!" _Make a deal! Make a deal!_ The voices cried all at once, ending their silence so suddenly he flinched. He shook his head to rid himself of the shock. Now wasn't the time. He'd promised.

"No, I'm afraid my monster-slaying days are over! I made a promise to my son, and I intend to keep it."

"We sent Beowulf after the beast days ago, but we haven't heard from him since!" Beowulf. There was a name he hadn't heard of or thought of in months, not since that night at the tavern, which was surprising given the angry reaction of the voices in his head. Was that how the former disgraced soldier made his living these days? Hunting monsters? But…what did they want him to do about it?

"Papa!" Baelfire called out behind him, making his way, muddy face and all, with a smile on his face. "You can help them!"

No. He couldn't. Bae had asked him not to use his powers, he wasn't about to show villagers preference over his family. "But I won't break my promise son," he argued. "I won't use Dark Magic."

"You don't have to!" Bae insisted. "You can save those people without your magic."

"No!" Face a beast without magic? Face an ogre or a Grendel, or anything without magic? That was preposterous. Magic was the only thing keeping him standing on two feet right now. Without it, he wouldn't have dared to do what he'd done to end the ogre war. He wouldn't dare to this. "I can't."

"You can," Bae smiled. "And it will be a chance to show everyone in the village the truth! That you're not a slave to that dagger!"

"You think that'll make things better for us?"

"I know it will, Papa!" Bae believed in him. Belief was stronger than magic wasn't it? Or at least just as strong. How could he let his son down after that?

He turned back to the crowd. They were all staring at the pair of them in eager anticipation, looking at Bae with gratitude and not like he was a little boy with mud on his face. Bae needed this. He needed to see he wasn't a monster, these villagers needed to see it. So that next time they wouldn't see Baelfire as the son of a monster, but only as the son of a hero.

"I'll do it!" he declared, breaking into a wide smile and flinging his arms out.

"We'll do it!" Bae answered stepping forward.

"Bae!"

"I'm going with you, Papa!" he declared looking over at him. "I'll be careful, I promise. Now…" he watched as Bae used his hand to wipe the stray mud off his face, leaving brown, dried smears in its place. But he stepped forward and looked Taneeca in the eye with excitement he hadn't seen since the Ogre Wars. "Tell us everything you know about the Grendel."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do love getting to write about magical exploration! What you see in the first half of this chapter is really only the beginning, but I liked showing that early on there were signs he was going to be something of a visionary with his magic. He's not following recipes or instructions he's just playing around with magic and realizing he can make things better. And then, of course, we have the Beowulf episode finally coming into play. I'm not going to lie, I really hated this episode. It's hard for me to pinpoint why, it wasn't necessarily the story I just think I hated the writing of it. There were some things that seemed so out of left field they were hard to digest. There's not much I can do about all that since this series stays in canon, but I can say that in a few chapters things start to get interesting again with the Dark Ones and that helped! I really enjoyed having that aspect in this fiction. The fact that the Dark Ones are invisible meant that I got to take the seen stuff and actually add to it without disrupting canon and that's probably my favorite part of this fiction!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your Comments! We've got the Beowulf chapters for a bit before we are solidly back into some more magic exploration, but before the 6x13 chapters are done the Dark Ones will "come back" so that should make it a bit better. Whether you love this episode or hate it, stick with me because a lot of answers and explanations are going to be coming at you very soon! Peace and Happy Reading!


	22. Plans and Plots

Baelfire's plan, at first, had potential. He could see that easily enough. The look in Bae's eyes as he'd stepped up to Taneeca and listened to all she had to say about the Grendel, was daring and exciting. He was ready to go and find him and prove to the entire world that what the baker's son had said wasn't true! With every word Bae's eagerness grew.

He, on the other hand, felt something extremely different. Every second, every detail that came pouring out of the woman's mouth created a picture in his head, which filled him with a growing sense of unease. A Grendel, nine feet tall at least, a small body so skinny that every rib was exposed. Its features were sharp and pointed. Sharp, pointed teeth and even sharper talons on long fingers and toes, and ears like a cats. It walked around naked and exposed on hunched legs, with greenish-gold flesh "not unlike your own" one of the villagers said. But the most terrifying feature was its tail. It was long and capable of wrapping around a neck and squeezing until the victim was dead. It was forked, with two spiked spades on each end. It was deadly. And as if all this wasn't enough…

"It likes the dark! It lives, we believe, in a cave on the other side of a bog, good and muddy, lots of places to hide!"

"It doesn't matter," Bae insisted. "We'll find it and destroy it!"

"Baelfire!"

"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!" the villagers had smiled before he could chastise Bae or tell him to stop and think about this for a second. He was immortal, but Baelfire wasn't. He'd defeated ogres of course, but he'd done that with a flick of his wrist, using Dark One magic. He'd promised Bae he'd stop with all that and yet…he couldn't see a way to defeat this creature without it. He wanted to, and he knew he should feel brave enough to do it knowing he couldn't be killed, but how was he supposed to do it? With a sword? He had none and couldn't summon one, not without using the kind of magic Bae insisted he stay away from. All he had was his dagger. Magic or not, it was the only weapon he had…and the only one he wanted.

That must have been why, as he and Bae stepped outside to go to the other village he stopped him and remarked he'd forgotten his cloak. And as Baelfire waited safely out of sight outside the hovel, he imagined himself standing in his aunt's house, his workshop, once there he quickly removed the dagger from its hiding place in the floor, and then took himself back to fetch his cloak and meet Baelfire once more. It happened in the blink of an eye, too quick for Bae to even notice he'd gone, too quick for him to consider what the action meant or how he intended to use it or even if he wanted to use it. All he knew was that he didn't want to be without it. Though he had to admit, the more he and Bae hiked through the forest, into the next town, and toward the bog, he wanted to use it more than he didn't.

He twisted his hands in his gloves what felt like the entire way there. The knot in his belly grew and tightened with every broken branch they found, but the moment they began to find footprints, twice the size of his own, belonging to a creature he couldn't identify, nerves consumed him. Suddenly he felt very much so like the lame cowardly spinner he'd once been, and he hated it. This was silly. He could think of a dozen plans, so many different ways to use magic and stop all this right now! He was the most powerful man in the realm! But somehow the thought of going up against this Grendel without his magic seemed like a suicide mission. He wanted so badly to be the hero that Bae wanted him to be, but he needed his magic to do it. He couldn't do it without.

Bae was out of breath as he led the way while he came to this conclusion. He had to figure out a way to convince Bae to let him use his magic or…

_"Alter the boy's memories…"_

The voice was a whisper in his head, softer and less insistent that Zoso. It was feminine, and it was alone. Nimue. It was the first time she had communicated with him since she'd insisted he was going to be on his own for a while.

_"You've grown, Rumple, become smarter and more clever in my absence. You may as well use what you've learned. The memory potion you created lay in your pocket. Alter the boy's memories so that he'll forget you ever made such a deal with him."_

Yes. The memory potion was in his pocket, along with half a dozen others and Baelfire didn't know he'd been spending his nights working on them, but…

The memory potion didn't work the way they thought it could. It couldn't be used to eradicate random memories! They had made their deal a long while ago, it would take a fourth, no! A third of the potion at least to reach back that far into the past and remove his memories. As far as Bae would be concerned the Ogre War would still be going on, he could tell him that he'd hit his head! That they were still hunting ogres!

And relieve him of all the good memories since then? All the times they'd sat down to eat together? Talked together? Worked together? There had been some slip-ups, of course, bad days like today, but for the most part life had been good for them since the Ogre War had ended. The idea of his son losing those thoughts just to take care of one saddened him. Besides, Bae was smart, it was coming on winter, and they'd defeated the ogres in the middle of summer, he might be able to hide the amount of time that was missing for a day or so, explain it as being unseasonably cold, but he couldn't keep a lie like that up forever. Eventually, Bae would find out, and he couldn't see him taking well to that. He couldn't do it. He'd have to think of another way.

 _"Do it on your own then!"_ Nimue hissed.

Fine! He would! He'd think of something without the Darkness! And it would be great!

"This way, Papa!" Bae declared charging toward water ahead. Looking around the tree, he could see that the water was rippling as if someone had just dove in. Or something.

"Grendel must be in the caves beyond the lake…" he muttered. It was the only explanation That was what they'd said, they thought Grendel was living in caves near a bog and…well, it looked like a lake, but it was undoubtedly muddy enough to be a bog if it was summer and dry. And the landscape around the bog, it would have tunnels that led into the caves that could very well be flooded. That must be how he got in and out and why no one ever saw him. He used water. Clever.

"We'll never find the entrance," he muttered, hoping Bae might become discouraged and go home, or better yet, perhaps wait outside while he dispatched the beast his own way. That would be the answer to all his problems. What Bae didn't know wouldn't hurt him. And besides, if he brought the beasts head to the villagers, what would it matter if he'd used his magic or not? The town would be safe, the Grendel would be dead, and he would be a hero.

"Yes, we can!" Bae stated with too much confidence. "The waters aren't deep, we can wade through it."

He fought the urge to laugh. It was winter. There was snow on the ground, clearly Bae had never waded through cold water or fallen through ice before. His legs would be numb before he walked two steps. Which might send him back home but…he could do better. He was capable of more.

_Memory Potion._

The thought came to him almost immediately from Nimue again and suddenly he thought of a different plan. Could he send Bae home? Get him to take a memory potion to help Bae remember this had never happened. He wouldn't have to face Grendel without magic, Bae wouldn't have to be hurt, all would be well. He could tell him he hit his head and the Grendel was defeated. It wouldn't make for an easy few hours before he gave him the potion. Unless…

Unless he just put him to sleep. He'd read that was possible in one of his books, but he hadn't tried it yet. Perhaps, if he used the dagger….

His hand was already nearly wrapped around the dagger when Bae turned back and he quickly let it go, his nerves getting the best of him.

"What is it?" Bae questioned. He'd seen. His son was perceptive, he hadn't moved his hand quick enough, and now he was demanding an answer.

He could lie, but he preferred not to hide things from Bae. And if he could craft a memory potion then what would it matter? He reached behind him and pulled the dagger from the hidden sheath he'd crafted for himself during the Ogre Wars. In a situation like this, just holding it in his hand made him feel better. Obviously, it had the opposite effect on Baelfire.

"You brought the dagger?!"

"I couldn't leave it behind!" he reasoned. On an adventure like this magic would come in handy he had to see the sense in that. "We could be in those caves in the blink of an eye!"

"But Papa that's not going to prove anything to anyone!"

Wouldn't it? Wouldn't it show that the Dark One was capable of good and not just darkness? Wouldn't that change things? Wouldn't that keep Bae alive?

"I want to do this the right way, Bae, but…I can't explain it…"

"I can," he answered. "It's just like when you needed the crutch, to walk!"

"Yes!" he breathed in amazement. How had he known that? Better yet, could he see just how necessary it was to him, how much more necessary than that cane ever had been. "Only worse…when I felt the power this gave me, I couldn't imagine living without it."

"Remember when an ember jumped from the stove, and caught your store of wool on fire?" he questioned.

He nodded. Yes…of course he remembered that, what surprised him was that Bae did. That had been just after Milah had gone. He'd rushed around the house, urging him out for fear of the fire spreading and the roof caving in on him, all the while getting water to pour over the wool and stop the spread. Bae remembered that?

"You rushed across the hovel to put it out! Without your crutch!"

Bae remembered. But he remembered it differently than he did. What he saw as brave and gallant he remembered as painful and fearful. He remembered shrieking with every footfall and collapsing the moment it was over, his body too spent to go on. If their house weren't so small, he never would have been able to do what he'd done.

"But that was a short distance..."

"So is this!" Bae insisted looking across the lake. Think of it like…walking across the hovel! One step at a time." He didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. What he wanted was to use the dagger, to warm the water, to kill the Grendel, to keep Bae safe. But he wouldn't be happy if he did. What he remembered as fearful Bae remembered as bravery. That could go both ways. If he used magic, then he may look back on this moment as brave and good, but Baelfire might see it as nothing more than cowardice. One step at a time. He hated the idea of going, but the way he saw it, there was no choice. Bae may not hold the dagger, but he was a slave to his son's yearnings all the same. A slave to the image his son held of him in his mind that he desperately wanted to make true. But the song of the dagger, the urgings of Nimue and Zoso and every Dark One that had ever lived…

"Okay…there's only one way I'm going to be able to do this…" he muttered. He turned the dagger around and exposed the hilt to Bae. The voices were suddenly in his head once more. All at once they were in an uproar, furious and fearful, screaming at him calling him a fool and a coward. But he didn't let it stop him. In fact, it was because of them he continued to hold the dagger out to his son.

"But…Papa, this can control you!"

"Exactly Bae," he answered. The temptation to use magic even now was great. The only way to be sure he would keep his promise and do as Bae wanted was to have no choice in the matter, to take the power of the Dark One out of his hands and put it into the hands of one who would make sure he would use it for good. "If you see me go to use this dark power…you stop me!"

It took a moment, but eventually Bae nodded and took the dagger from him. It was just as it had been before, the first time he'd come home as the Dark One and Baelfire had handled the dagger. The invisible line that he felt tied to the dagger suddenly radiated and pulsed back to him from Bae's hand. He was in his control now. There was no question about it. The only question now was how he would defeat the Grendel without it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my! Whatever will they do?! Whatever will happen now?!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter! It's always so kind of you to leave me such happy remarks! Pretty straightforward chapter without much to say about it. Don't worry, it gets better soon! Peace and Happy Reading!


	23. A Perfectly Executed Plan

It was shallow water, just as Bae had suggested it was. The villagers had been right, it was far more a bog than a lake as it looked; at its deepest it only came up above their knees. They hoisted their cloaks up, to keep themselves warm despite the freezing water and small bits of ice that made their way into their boots. He didn't like it, but it wasn't the crisis that he had imagined it to be on the banks. No, the crisis was the cave. The dark and damp place they finally found a small opening to, had him wishing he could just create a flame as he had inside the ogres and at the very least lit their way. It was the least of what he wanted to do. The truth was, what he really wanted to do was leave, take Bae, imagine them back in their hovel, and stay clear of this Grendel. But he couldn't do that. Baelfire had the dagger. And it must not have been vocal commands that could be used with it but also mental ones, because every time he had the urge to try magic, he felt it drain from him.

Of course, the magic was still there, and he could feel that too, but he knew in his deepest of hearts he could do nothing with it. That must have been Bae's doing, his will. Suddenly he wished he hadn't given such a tool over to him and the voices applauded his revelation but scorned him for being too stupid not to have it in the first place. The Dar Ones were back all at once it seemed, all with the exception of Zoso. And all of them had a fury for him he could easily match at the moment. It had been a stupid move handing the dagger over to Baelfire. If they were in danger there was nothing he could do to help them. It was foolish. He was traipsing through a black cavern with water in his boots, up to his ankles, he was cold, his son, his most prized possession, was before him, and he had no weapon to help him. To make matters worse, every now and then he felt as though he could feel a twinge in his ankle and wondered if Baelfire was accidentally channeling away that magic as well. He was powerless. He may as well be a lame spinster again.

_The kind of foolishness that comes from love. Take this lesson to heart, Rumpelstiltskin. Don't forget it!_

From up ahead, there was suddenly a loud noise that distracted him from Nimue's reprimand. Something that echoed off the cavern walls. It wasn't a scream, it was far too low for that. No, it sounded like a roar.

The Grendel.

It stopped both he and Bae in their tracks.

"Grendel," he muttered looking ahead of them for any sign of movement. Beside him, Bae had stopped, but one look at his face showed that he knew no fear. He was surprised, but still confident. He'd never seen that as a bad thing before today. But if he could do nothing to turn Bae back…

He took a step forward, ahead of his son before reaching back for him. He may not be able to use magic, but he was still immortal. Bae wasn't. If the Grendel attacked he wanted to be the target so that Bae could run. He'd get home eventually. He may be broken and bruised, but at least Bae would still be unharmed. With the dagger in his son's hands, it was the only thing he could do.

Finally, they came to a place where the ground sloped up, the water slipped below the soles of their feet as it should have and they walked on solid, if not dry, ground. Still, there was nothing. No beast, no noise. Roots of a tree above the cavern hung from the ceiling like vines, and he shoved them away, looking for something, anything that might be a danger. There was nothing. Accept…

Bodies.

Three of them.

They lay sprawled out on the cavern floor, motionless and so pale they nearly glowed in the darkness.

"We're too late," he whispered stepping closer to them. Bae stayed behind as he inspected, hoping to get a hint of where the beast had gone or how long it had been here, perhaps even a hint of how it killed, it's strategy. On the bodies he saw no teeth marks or evidence of claws or great beasts as he'd been led to believe. In the end, the cause of their death was simple. Their throats were split open, one long simple wound, as if with a sword. The villagers had said that the Grendel had sharp claws…but these cuts were not the raved slashings of an animal. They were precise. What was this creature?

In the hands of one of the men a sword lay clutched there and he moved to take it. It was then that he heard the roar once more and held the sword aloft, the position of defense he remembered from training in the army so long ago. It had been a long time since he'd held a sword for this purpose, but he seemed to remember just fine. Or at least his body did.

He crept further slowly, waiting, anticipating the attack! Bae's footsteps were behind him, but he was happier that way than with them beside or ahead of him. There was a clearing ahead, a large open space where it seemed that some sunlight was getting through the rocks. That would be the best place for an ambush…

Nothing.

In the space he looked around, his eyes searching for a hint, a shadow that a creature was laying in wait-but there was nothing. At least, it wasn't a creature that caught his eye.

Tucked away, there was something else he spotted. He reached down to pick it up. It was a horn of some kind. In perfect condition too! As if it had been left here only moments ago! Moments ago…

He felt as though he'd been doused in ice-cold water as he had a thought...a terrible, terrible thought. There was only one way to know...

He put his mouth to the horn and blew. What came out was nothing like the music he'd ever heard but what sounded instead like a long low growl. The same growl they'd been hearing.

"An ogre's call!" he realized, confirming his suspicion.

Trap! It was a trick! This creature wasn't a creature! It was a human, pretending! But why?!

"Papa, what is it?" Bae called from around the corner. "Are you all right?"

But before he could answer he heard something, a scuffle that had him turn quickly back to his son as he cried out "Papa!"

"Stay away from my son!" he growled, looking in time to see Bae on the ground, pushed there by…

Beowulf!

It was him?!

"Or what?!" the would-be hero threatened. His heart stopped as he helped Bae back to his feet. It truly had been a scuffle, and somewhere in it, Bea had lost hold of the dagger. He knew that because Beowulf stood before him now, holding it in his own hands.

_Take! Strike! Teach!_

But Beowulf was smart! He knew of the Dark One Curse, as evidenced from the night in the tavern, and now he held the dagger in his hand. He felt his ability to do the magic radiating in his body dissolve. He was commanding him not to hurt him without the words.

"Don't!" Bae shouted at him. "We should be fighting Grendel together!"

"There is no Grendel, Bae," he responded, staring at the man. His master. His plan was suddenly forming and taking shape in his own mind. Smart, smart man. And a foolish one he'd been. "There never has been," he explained, handing the Ogre's call over to his son.

"Your father's right," Beowulf confirmed. "The only monster down here, is the Dark One."

Him? A monster? The only one in the caverns? He sneered at such a thought when the memory of the villagers death was still fresh in his mind.

"You killed those villagers!"

"I didn't," he answered before pointing the knife at him. "You did."

He felt cold all of a sudden. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with the cavern or the water in his boot. With that dagger he could tell the villagers he'd done it. He could force him to confess to a crime he didn't commit to cover it up. Beowulf would be a hero and Bae…he'd be the son of the monster!

"Why are you doing this?" Baelfire begged. The answer was already clear to him. Revenge.

"So he can be the hero he thinks he was meant to be," he answered for him.

"We would have won that war without your dark magic!" he roared back.

"You would have died! Everyone would have died!" Just as they had been in the war for decades! "And doing this now, won't make you a hero."

Grendel smiled. "That's not what the villagers are going to say when they see you standing over these bodies. So that was his plan! He couldn't use magic on the man, couldn't rip him limb from limb as he wanted, but he still had a sword, and just as much training as he had. He lunged, pulling the sword back, preparing to strike! But Grendel held the dagger up before him, and he felt his body go strangely ridged.

"Dark One, I command you, stay exactly where you are!"

"No! Papa!" Bae cried.

"Bae, run, get help!" he ordered before he took away his ability to speak too.

He listened. He ran out of the cavern quickly, and Beowulf looked back on him with a smile.

"Think your boy can stop me?" he questioned. "You may have ended the Ogres War, but I'll be remembered as the hero who defeated the Dark One."

With that final promise, Beowulf turned and left him frozen in that spot with the sword in his hand and the bodies in the cavern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hard chapter to write just because I can't ever imagine owning a person and having complete and total control over them as Baelfire and Beowulf command Rumple in this chapter. I was able to put my own spin on it, though it is a spin we've heard before. I wanted to make clear that you don't need to speak a command aloud for the Dark One to act when you hold the dagger. I mean, I don't think it's my spin alone, I think they did show that on the show (correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't think it was ever said or explored in so many words. I tried hard to make sure it was mentioned here.
> 
> Big, big, big thank yous are going out to RolfB for your continued comments on this fiction as well as for all your good thoughts and support throughout this journey. I think you are going to like the next chapter. I know the Dark One voices are back in this chapter but it's really in a very shallow way. Nimue comes back starting in the next chapter and it's in a pretty big way! Peace and Happy Reading!


	24. Crossing the Darkest Line

He was stuck, frozen in place and unable to move no matter which way he attempted to turn. His brain gave the command, screamed it, and in his mind he could see himself try to move in a motion so violent it would have cracked his own back, but still, he stayed right where he was. His only hope now was Bae, that he might get help, that he might tell the tale first and the people would believe him rather than Beowulf!

"And if they don't?"

If he could have lost his breath, he would have. From up ahead, he saw a hooded figure appear out of the shadows. It was a woman, with skin as dark and scaled as his own, her hair slicked back so tight it clung to her skull. Her eyes were focused on him as he stood there, and he felt shame and embarrassment bubble up inside of him at his inability to move. Though he couldn't understand why, she meant nothing to him, he knew the last person he wanted to be around in front of this failure was Nimue.

"Leave me be," he growled. "Help me if you can, but not-"

"Help you?! Against the dagger?" she questioned with a chuckle. "It can't be done. I tried to teach you, Rumpelstiltskin. I tried to teach you and you wouldn't listen," she explained with a sigh and shake of her head, as if she were the mother of a toddler and utterly disappointed they hadn't learned to walk on time. "And have you learned now?" she asked peering into his eyes, nearly nose to nose with him. He hated this, being stuck before her and unable to turn away. He hated her. And he knew he wasn't the first. "I can feel you haven't. You're all so stubborn at first, but you certainly more than the others."

"I made my son a promise," he insisted. He was clenching his jaw so hard he thought he heard his own teeth crack.

"Never mind that. Teeth will heal. But if you don't find a way around that deal with your son, then you will find yourself at the whim of another master."

"If it's for Bae-"

"Yes…Baelfire…the one you love so much, let's consider that for a moment shall we?" She smiled as she began to circle him. It was unnerving to watch her disappear on his right and not be able to follow her with his eyes until she reappeared on his left. "Love is weakness, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Lies!"

"Truth!" she shouted back, suddenly standing nose to nose with him again. "And if you think being a slave to another is worth it to keep Baelfire safe…think again. You are immortal, nothing but the blade of the dagger piercing your own heart will end that. If someone takes you, you can be held in the smallest of chambers with no food, no water, for a hundred years and live to the tell the tale. You're nothing more than a glorified genie with no consequences for those who would own you. But what of your son? He's naught but another mouth to feed! Do you think your masters will take good care of him as they chain you like a wild animal? Do you think he'll do well on his own without his father? Or will they eliminate the ties holding you back and simply have you kill him."

"Evil witch! I would never hurt Baelfire!"

She reacted to him only by taking a step back as she laughed. What she found funny at a moment like this he couldn't say and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know given her nature. But the moment she stopped laughing, the moment she stepped forward and pressed her solemn face with her black eyes close to his own...he'd have given anything to get that laugh back.

"You would do anything that dagger tells you to do!" she hissed at him. "Anything!" Finally, she began to pull away and retreat back to the shadows of the cavern. "It's time you learned that lesson! If you won't listen to me…listen to the whims of the boy who holds the dagger in the palm of his hand…"

He stared back at her, confused for a moment as she disappeared, until he very suddenly felt something within him shift. It was power! Though he hadn't the first idea how, he knew the dagger had changed hands and that was all he needed to drop his hands and sag suddenly against the floor of the cave. He wasn't sure who or why it had happened, all he could do was hope that it shifted to-

He had to go! The string that bound him to that dagger was tugging at him, or maybe pulling at him. It felt as though he'd had a shepherd's crook hook itself around his back and now, despite not knowing where he was going or to who, he disappeared, the dagger was the only picture he needed in his hand. When he arrived, he saw before him Beowulf with the sword, the one made with fairy magic, he was swinging the sword at him and he responded. He felt the bonds that had been restraining him since Bae first took the dagger fall away and when he held up his hand and struck. He felt a lot, too many things at one time! He felt a deal break as the one who asked him not to use his dark magic suddenly demand that he would. He felt strong and powerful again. And he felt magic course out of him with the same force of a cannonball and watched as the soldier was blown backward, falling against a tree before going to the ground. Served him right.

He walked forward, his heart racing, the voices cheering. Suddenly he felt as he had at home all over again, the day he'd killed Hordor and his band of bullies. Beowulf was no different than them. A bully, taking advantage of other's weaknesses to get what he wanted! Not today.

"I told you to stay away from my son!" He wanted to strangle him as he'd seen Zoso do to others in his village. He wanted him to suffer, to know that it was he and he alone who held his life in his hands. He wanted to see him as they had been. On their hands and knees, gasping for hair, desperate for escape…just as he had felt when he was held in place by his order. He wanted him to know what it was to be truly helpless. The gurgles coming from his mouth as he leaned against the tree and clawed at his neck were satisfying. They were the best sounds he'd heard all day!

"Go ahead!" he choked out. "Kill me! Then your boy will see that you are a monster!"

His boy…

Behind him was Baelfire. He had nearly forgotten in the heat of the moment, but all he had to do to remember was turn and see him there, clutching the dagger in front of him with two white hands. No magic. No Dark Magic. It felt good, holding Beowulf at bay, watching him struggle beneath his grip, feeling it in some magical way…but killing those men outside their hovel had once felt good too. He could still remember Bae's terrified eyes when he'd gone into the house and the way that he had reacted to his murder of them. He did not want to be a monster, that wasn't why he had taken this power, he'd taken it to make the world better, he'd taken it to save his boy, he'd taken it to end the ogre wars. He'd done all that and his son had still turned up at home with mud on his face. Maybe his son was right, there was something to prove. He would not let this power turn him into a monster. Not for anyone but his son and certainly not for scum like Beowulf.

Just as Beowulf's struggles for air became desperate, he softened his hand, and the man collapsed on the forest floor, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"I'm taking you back to the village," he whispered as he got his breath. "And I'm telling them the truth."

"You think they'll believe you?" he questioned as he tried to push himself up. "They're afraid of you Rumple. They watched you bring an army of ogres to their knees. They know it's only a matter of time before you turn that dagger on them."

No. It wouldn't be like that. They'd never even heard of the Dark One before this war, before the duke had brought this abomination to the village.

"He's right Papa!" Bae breathed behind him. "They'll never believe us!"

They knew him, the real him. They would see. And if they didn't…it wouldn't be the end of the world.

"Then we'll find a new village, Bae." Leaving their village wasn't what he wanted, but he'd do it. If they had to move to another town and he had to live a reclusive life so that his son could have a normal life, with normal friends who wouldn't smear mud on his face, then he'd do it. He'd been willing once before. He could do it again.

But suddenly a feeling reached back through the link he had with the dagger, the link he had with his son who was holding it. He could see the fear and panic he had on his face, but he could also feel it now. It was panic and sadness like he'd only ever known once in his life. It had come from Milah, the day that Bae had been bitten by the snake and they'd been afraid that they might lose him after Fendrake had turned them away without the cure. He remembered what had come after that.

"We'll start over, you and me!" he encouraged, trying to calm the boy, wondering for the first time in his life just how much of his mother he had inside of him.

He wasn't convinced. His words hadn't worked. He could feel it.

"No!" Bae declared rounding on Beowulf, the dagger held firm in his hand. Beside him, Beowulf rose to his feet, and suddenly he looked a lot more comfortable and confident than he had only moments ago. "I won't let him do this to us! He's the monster, he's the one who should pay!" The feeling coming through the dagger was overwhelming as he strode over to him, and he knew what was happening before Bae could say the words. It made him want to weep, he didn't want this for his son. He couldn't!

"Step aside boy," Beowulf dared, angering his son further. It was the wrong thing to say. And when he reached out and shoved Bae aside so he felt to the ground…that was the wrong thing to do. He was his father, but without the dagger he couldn't control what came next.

"Bae…" he muttered as Beowulf moved away. "Don't!"

It was too late. He could feel the blackness in his son's heart.

"Dark One! Stop him!"

He had no choice! He tried to fight it, he felt his body go rigid with pain as everything inside of him tried to go in the same direction as the escaping soldier. "Bae!" he managed to choke out.

"Do it!" he commanded. "Kill him!"

He couldn't disobey all he could do was scream in agony, mingled with the noise of a Dark One's war cry as he launched himself forward, after the soldier. He jumped as he never had even as a child, as if he was flying! He grabbed Beowulf's head, and snapped his neck just as he'd snapped Hordor's. It might have felt just as good as that. Only a few moment's ago he could have killed him, and it would have felt just as amazing as it had to kill Hordor. But with the command coming from Bae, it didn't feel good at all. He didn't want this, not at all. But he was alone in that feeling, for the emotion that echoed back through the link in the dagger was startling. Pride. Strength. Pleasure. He'd used his father as a tool to kill a man. The blood was on his hands, but he felt nothing like he should have in the aftermath.

"Oh Bae…" he whispered, trying to hold back his tears for him. He'd never been more scared for his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was both difficult and fun to write. It started fun, I got to have a sweet moment where I brought Nimue back and gave her a painfully detailed conversation. I say painfully detailed because even though it's only a couple of minutes for Rumple, I wanted it to have that feeling of "getting a talking to" from your parents, which always felt like they went on forever. I wanted to emphasize how he's attempting to read her body language and aware of every little thing she does. He's learning from her, even if he doesn't realize it. But then, of course, it ended difficult, for obvious reasons.
> 
> Thank you to RolfB for your comments on the last chapter and thank you to Teacupsroses for your helpful Harry Potter knowledge! I hope you'll "enjoy" this conversation with Nimue, despite how the chapter ends. She's officially placing herself back in the game in this chapter and there are a lot more interesting conversations with Nimue and Zoso coming up in the next chapters! Peace and Happy Reading!


	25. A Matter of Perspective

She was right. He hadn't wanted to believe it. But she was right!

_"You would do anything that dagger tells you to do! Anything! It's time you learned that lesson! If you won't listen to me…listen to the whims of the boy who holds the dagger in the palm of his hand…"_

Oh, a lesson well learned it was! He didn't want this! He never wanted any of this to happen! Never, not once, in all the dreams he'd had of fatherhood could he ever have imagined something as dastardly as this! A body at his feet and instead of shrinking away, his son was beaming! Baelfire was looking at the dagger, staring at it not like it was the dangerous abomination it was, but rather like it was something precious he wanted to keep with him every second of the day. And through the link that connected him to it, he could feel that he didn't want to keep it for the noble reasons he had earlier. What he had in mind was something far more cowardly.

"Bae…" He made a motion forward, assuming that it would be as it was in when he was a child and playing with something he shouldn't have been, that he could just reach forward and take it from him for his own good! But he felt Bae's response long before he said anything because he stopped in his tracks without ever ordering his body to do so.

"No!" Bae insisted, moving it away from him. "You gave it to me for safekeeping!"

"The danger is over now, son. It's time to hand it back!"

"But danger is always lurking! You told me that all my life! We did it, Papa! We stopped the Grendel."

"Beowulf," he corrected.

"But he was the monster," he fought back. "Beowulf _was_ the Grendel. And Papa, think of what else we could do! We stopped one monster why not more?! You gave me the dagger to help you do good things! We can do more, Papa!"

Only he was fairly certain at the moment that Bae's idea of what was good and what was bad was twisted and still twisting, but convincing him of that, out here, as the sun was sinking and the day was being devoured by night…he needed to think.

"Alright, son," he conceded. "Alright, but…let's head home, back to the hovel. What do you say?"

Bae was breathing heavily, he could see his chest rising and falling as he stared wide-eyed at the dagger in his hand, thinking over what had just been said. All at once he felt a thirst rise up in his son, a desire he sensed before he asked for it. Suddenly he understood how the Dark One's understood all his own unspoken thoughts.

"Can you get us there by magic?" Baelfire asked eagerly. He nodded. Baelfire smiled as he stepped closer to him. "Then do it! Let's go!"

The voices in his head seemed to have returned with a vengeance and rebelled leaving so quickly. It was a command. He expected he'd have to follow and he did…but there was a loophole, one pointed out to him for the good of the Dark Ones. He'd told him to take them home. He'd never said when.

"Wait!" he cried at the voice's insistence.

"Papa, what?"

They wanted something. He wanted something. The sword in Beowulf's hand. He had to have it for reasons he didn't understand. It was powerful, they said, fairy magic. He hated fairies, more than anything else in this world, but as he sneered at it the figure of Nimue appeared just behind a tree, hood up, smiling at him almost seductively. He didn't want to argue with her, not here, not now, not in front of his boy. He needed to get Bae home. So he obeyed. He stepped forward, took the sword from his motionless hand, and held it tight in his own. Then he walked back to Baelfire, put a hand on his shoulder, and in a cloud of smoke, the forest around them disappeared. When it cleared, they were home, standing just outside the back of the hovel so that the neighbors wouldn't see them appear. Bae was still holding the dagger clearly in his hand. He couldn't risk the other's seeing it. And he certainly couldn't risk Bae holding on to it if others knew what it was. Oh, he knew. He knew without having to hear the stories of the One's in his head telling him that there was a lot of blood that had been spilled to possess that dagger. If Bae wasn't careful with it, someone would kill him and take it by force. And since he no longer was in charge of his son, he couldn't keep him anywhere Bae didn't wish to be anymore…

What a mess all this was.

"Why don't you go on inside Bae," he encouraged. "I'll get some firewood for the hearth."

"Can't you just light a fire with your magic?" he questioned. He felt himself flinch. He was right, he could. But the dagger wasn't demanding he be truthful right now and even if it was, a loophole was easy enough to find.

"I can…but air doesn't burn. I need wood to keep the blaze going."

He watched and waited for a few seconds before Baelfire seemed to accept this answer. He gave a short nod and then went in through the back door.

The second Baelfire was away, he let himself stumble and fall to his knees. He expected to feel relief from everything that had happened, just a single moment that he might be able to breathe and think, but he felt no such thing. Every emotion, everything that scared him so much about his son still radiated through him, connected by that damn dagger! It did things to people. He understood that now. He thought he'd been safe giving it to Bae but the spell that it had cast over him when he'd used magic to kill Beowulf…it was a dangerous thing. Not just in the wrong hands, in any hands. He had to get it back. But how?!

He thought of the spell books he'd been learning from. He'd mostly just looked into potions so far but, maybe he could do more? He'd read somewhere that some creatures had the ability to "freeze" their victims in place. Perhaps he could do something like that. Freeze Bae and take the dagger back. Oh sure, he'd be angry when he came around, but one day he might understand. Once the blade was free and clear of his hands, he might even come to his senses.

"Seems a lot to put on a skill you haven't yet honed…"

He didn't even jump. After the vision of Nimue he could feel the Voices shuffling around in his brain again. He'd known then it was only a matter of time until Zoso returned too.

He tried to stand. It was only on instinct that he used the long object in his hand as a cane and put his weight on it as he rose, but sword cut easily through the dirt and mud and grass around him and in the end he had to give a good strong yank to get it out of the ground again. It was a reminder, the dagger was not the only blade they'd encountered this day.

"What is it?" he asked Zoso. He knew that he would know what it was. All the voices seemed to and once he asked the question and listened to their whispers, he knew as well, even before Zoso answered.

"Hrunting," Zoso explained, giving the blade a name. "It is ancient, long thought to be blessed as it has never lost a battle. In fact, it repels the magic of those that it comes up against. It's a valuable piece of magic and it was never meant for hands such as our own. It was forged by a fairy-"

"Fairies…" he scoffed looking it over in the growing darkness. With its jeweled hilt, it didn't look much like something a fairy could do, but then it wasn't his fault he knew so little about his mother's crooked kind. But he could clearly feel the magic moving through it, weakening but not destroying his own magic when he touched the blade. Not strong enough to overpower the Dark One…so much for fairies being all powerful.

"Only a fairy would come up with something such as this. Why did you want me to take it?" he asked turning back to Zoso.

The man rolled his eyes and took a step closer. "If it repels the magic of any it comes up against, wouldn't you rather be the one using it than the one on the other side of the blade?" he pointed out. Yes, it was rather obvious now that he mentioned it. Where he would keep a sword such as this, he didn't know, but it was something to be hidden and even protected. It wouldn't kill him, the magic that was within him was too strong for that, but it could weaken him, and he didn't want to see how his curse would react to that. This was a true matter of survival. Not like what had happened with Beowulf and Baelfire. That had been different than survival. It was carnal.

"We've possessed Hrunting twice and lost it twice. Perhaps in your hands it'll be safe. You know what you need to do, don't you?" Zoso inquired changing the subject.

His thoughts traveled back through the connection and touched his son's pride once more. The pain of that happiness in the wake of Beowulf's death seared.

Yes. He knew what he needed to do. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two vials of the potions he'd been working on through the night. One was a sleeping potion, the other a memory potion. It would be easier to use the sleeping potion. It required only skin to skin contact, a fling in Bae's direction would drop him like a sack of potatoes and free him to reclaim the dagger, but there was more to it than simply claiming the dagger. To put Bae to sleep and take the dagger left him with the same problem freezing him in place did. He'd still remember. He'd wake up tomorrow with the memories of this day as well as the bloodlust he still clearly felt in his son. That left only one option.

The memory potion. It was trickier. It had to be drunk, and the dosage could potentially pose a problem but nothing like the problem he had at present. It could be simple. He could slip it into some tea and just like he'd considered out there in the woods he could just tell Bae he'd hit his head. He didn't need to know the rest. But…to use this against his son instead of talking, to relinquish that much power to the dagger that he couldn't talk his son down and needed magic to do it, this felt wrong in so many different ways.

"How could I do it?" he questioned aloud. "Using magic like this against my boy-"

"Don't think of it as using it against him!" Zoso corrected excitedly. He reminded him unexpectedly of his father when he was trying to sell something to a stranger. "Think instead of using it for him! You know as well as I do that Baelfire cannot continue to hold that dagger, not with the memories he has of what happened! We know what kind of power that leads to."

He was right again. How many good men had he seen corrupted by just a bit of power? How many men had he known to be evil who would have been normal average individuals if not for the greed and power they possessed. Zoso had a point, he knew that he did. But Bae!

"But he's my son!"

"You would be saving him, Rumpelstiltskin!" Zoso urged. "You would be acting heroically to remove the temptation before him and restore him to the innocent bystander he was before you gave him that dagger. Don't think of it as taking from Baelfire. Think of it as being a father, doing what's best for his son. Think of it as correcting your own mistake rather than his."

His mistake. Not Bae's but his. Yes. He was the one that had given Bae the dagger, he was the one who had trusted it to him without thinking about the consequences. He was the father. Baelfire was the child. Part of being a father was protecting his children even from themselves.

He held the vial of memory potion tight in his hand. He had to fix this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was truly never meant to be a stand alone chapter. It was originally attached to the beginning of the next chapter, Rumple was supposed to return, think about what he was doing, then go back inside where Zoso would make his grand return. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you feel about this conversation, this chapter evolved into it's own conversation and I had to split it from the next chapter. Zoso is still in the next chapter, but its a little less dramatic now that he appears here, and yet at the same time I really liked the conversation the two had. I liked how we can kind of see how things become twisted up so easily. And really, how dramatic could Zoso's appearance in the next chapter have been? Like Rumple, we all knew that he'd have to come back at some time. Nimue's watching of him in this chapter was meant to feel like she'd completed her "lesson" and now he's got his guide back. Lesson learned? I like to think so.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter! I'm sorry it was a tad heartbreaking, but it had to be so. We all knew it. Next chapter is just as difficult but what is on the other side...now that is a lot better! Peace and Happy Reading!


	26. All Magic Comes With a Price

Inside the hovel, he spied Baelfire standing by the table. He didn't seem to notice his arrival. All Bae seemed to focus on was the dagger in his hand. He was concentrating hard on it, and his emotions…oh, those were coming through loud and clear. Astonishment. Revenge. Pride. Power. Strength. Suddenly every argument he had for attempting to talk his son into giving it to him melted away. He had to fix this problem he'd created. He had to get that dagger back just as much for Baelfire's sake as his own.

"How about some tea to warm our bones?" he suggested.

"Sure, sounds good," Bae answered. He only pried his eyes away from the dagger for a few moments to look up at him before they were returned to the blade. It saddened him. But he supposed, in the end, it was a good thing. With Bae's attention elsewhere, he was able to take a couple of mugs off the shelf and pull the potion from his pocket discreetly. It was clear, thankfully. And because it was supposed to be tasteless he had a feeling Bae probably would never know what hit him.

Guessing the dosage of the potion was the tricky part. If made correctly, then memory potion could be quite potent. One drop was capable of erasing about an hour of life. But he wasn't an expert at potions yet, the potion in his pocket was only his third attempt, and to top it all off he'd been actively experimenting with ingredients to dilute the potion. This had been a heavily diluted version and would be further diluted by the tea he was putting in as water was a main ingredient in it. Two teaspoons. That seemed safe enough. He couldn't be sure how far back it would go, but he hoped far enough back to perhaps erase the entire day from his memory and not make him shocked to find his father as the Dark One and the war ended…

One and a half was safer, he decided, pouring the liquid into the cup while Bae was distracted. Now all he had to do was wait for the water to boil. Neither said anything as he left the cups there on the table and returned to the whistling kettle. He worked on getting the tea together in quiet while Baelfire stared at his prize and quietly seethed and plotted. He hoped that Baelfire didn't do anything by accident, like think or wish death on anyone. He had a very clear understanding that if he did then he would be forced to carry out whatever deed he desired whether he wanted to or not. What happened in the woods with Beowulf could be hidden. If it happened here in town then he wasn't so sure that was how it would play out. They needed to be careful. And he needed to relieve him of that dagger quickly.

By the time he set the tea on the table, he noted that Bae no longer seemed even to notice him moving. He was too caught up in the power in his hand. It was time. There was no other choice. This was best for both of them.

"Bae…what are you going to do with the dagger now?" he questioned as he poured tea into the cup and Bae kept staring.

"I don't know," he answered. "But the baker's son will think twice about pushing me in the mud when he sees me carrying this."

He loved his son. He loved him more than he'd ever loved anyone or anything in his life, more than he'd ever admired his father, more than he'd adored his aunts, more than he'd wondered about his mother, but that look he had in his eyes now…he hated it. It was the same look he'd seen in Beowulf's eyes and Hordor's before that; power-hungry and greedy.

"Oh Bae, listen to yourself."

"Papa, I'm sorry I asked you to give up your power," he responded quickly. "I understand now why it's so hard, but we need it. It's the only way to protect ourselves."

From what? From who? The baker's son? Bae had ordered him to ruthlessly kill Beowulf over a single possible scenario, admittedly a scenario that probably had been true, but that was unproven and now they would never know. Would he have him do the same thing to the Baker's son? To any child who crossed him? His magic was vast, he understood that now, he could do so much! There were other ways, other things than murder that he could use to get what he wanted. But with Bae, a child, holding the dagger, he'd never get to experience it. He would never learn the value of it all. He wanted his magic, he wanted that power, and that meant Bae couldn't possess it.

"You're right, Bae," he stated gently, with a carefully calculated level of emotion. "You're right. Now, here!" He grabbed the cup of tea, the one with the memory potion inside of it and rose to hand it to him, being careful to keep an eye on the dagger. He didn't doubt his son loved him, but he was suddenly very aware that if his son should rush at him with it not only would he take the powers, he would die. Then how could he help him? "Drink your tea."

Bae took the cup and gulped it down in only a few mouthfuls, barely stopping to breath. He doubted very much that he even tasted it, which might have been exactly what he needed in this moment, especially because as he handed the cup back to him he wrinkled his nose and struggled to swallow the last dregs. It was supposed to be tasteless, but he had been experimenting. It was apparent Bae could sense there was something wrong with it, but it didn't matter anymore. Some of it was already down, it was only a matter of time before the memory was gone and with it…

"What's in this Papa?" he questioned as he took first the teacup, then easily slipped the dagger free from his son's fingers to set it on the table. The burden of power shifted, and the voices rejoiced. He felt oddly whole again. Like shackles had just been loosed from his wrists. Freedom. "It tastes strange!"

But the feeling of completeness soon wore out as Bae began to take in big gulps of air and sway on his feet.

"It's just the potion," Zoso assured him as he eased Bae back onto his bed. "It'll pass soon enough."

"Memory potion," he informed Bae. It was the best thing. He didn't want to lie to his boy and if he wasn't going to remember this then there was no reason to hide it. "I won't let you follow me into the Darkness Bae…" he whispered as Zoso chuckled happily in the corner. "One of us has to be strong."

Before him, Baelfire's face suddenly twisted in confusion and began to look around him. "Papa! Papa, where are we? How did we get out of the cave?"

He nearly wept for joy as Bae looked at him, desperate for answers. He'd done it. A few simple ingredients and magic and he'd taken Bae back before the awful thing that had happened. Not as far back as he'd desired, it seemed, something he noted for future experimentation with that potion, but far enough to suit his purposes. He'd have no memory, no desire for his power, no guilt or pride over Beowulf's death. It was perfect.

"You bumped your head," he assured him, reaching out to gently touch an invisible injury. "It must have been harder than I thought. Don't worry son, Beowulf won't be bothering us anymore."

"What?" he questioned, pulling away a bit. "What happened to him?"

He felt his heart race as he suddenly realized he'd spoken out of turn. He hadn't thought about this, hadn't put together a story that would make Bae and the village happy. Zoso was laughing, and he glanced over at him, to where he stood by the sword, wishing he would just quiet! Bae followed his gaze, but he saw nothing but the sword. He hadn't realized how damning something like that might be until just this moment.

"It…it's not important."

Bae moved from the bed and moved aside his cloak to retrieve the sword. He looked back at him with distrust in his eyes, a far cry from the thirst he'd seen only moments ago.

"You killed him," Bae assumed. The disturbing thing was that he assumed right. The good thing was that his assumption meant he lacked the full story, the truth of it. "Papa, how could you?"

His magic could do many things, but could it fix this? Or had his words held a bit a prophecy to them? Was he prepared to journey into this darkness alone? Just as he'd promised?

"I'm sorry, Bae," he muttered, feeling as though a stone was lodged in his throat. "I did what I had to do."

"Beowulf was right," he cried. "That dagger is turning you into a monster!" All at once, Bae set the sword aside and ran from the house. He didn't try to go after him, or find him. In fact, he didn't move hardly a muscle. He just sat there and twisted his hands in his lap.

"All magic comes with a price, Rumpelstiltskin," Zoso muttered in his departure.

Yes. It did. And he was finally coming to understand that. But it wasn't the only thing he had to understand, the only thing he had to learn in this new life. If this encounter with Beowulf had taught him anything, it was that he couldn't expect his curse to remain hidden. There would be others, many who might seek his power and use Bae to get it. He couldn't let that happen.

"Teach me what you can. Teach me to keep my son safe."

Zoso smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Rumple comes full circle and I'm hoping that what you feel here is that a lesson has been taught and learned, just as Nimue wanted when she took the voices from him.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your review on the last chapter! Ya'll, I am so excited for this next section of chapters it's not even funny! Starting now it is chapter after chapter after chapter of favorites for me. A lot of these chapters you are going to read are chapters that I really had in mind when crafting Rumple's story and I can't wait to share them with you! I really hope you are going to like them and think they fit perfectly into Rumple's story. Peace and Happy Reading!


	27. The Dark One Chronicles

"Where are we? Where have you brought me?"

The woods he was standing in were unfamiliar to him. Though the sights and sounds were precisely what he might find if he stepped outside his own home, he could tell that he was nowhere near there. And in the back of his head one of the voices, like an itch, a scratch on his skull, was able to tell him precisely where he was before Zoso had the chance. It was that same voice that had showed him this place.

"Another Kingdom," Zoso answered. "Close to your own, but still a fair distance on foot. It's the farthest you've ever traveled with your magic." Yes. He knew that. He also knew that these woods were not the objective in this outing; this was just where the Dark One who had been here last had taken him. Forward. He had to move forward. Whatever he was here to see wasn't here but lay ahead. He was supposed to find it.

Through the woods he moved silently, Zoso's memory not making a sound beside him as they walked. He was getting better at all this; at understanding the voices in his head before they spoke, at his magic, at all this change had brought upon himself, including his body. He wished he could say the same for Baelfire, but since the night Beowulf had died he'd become distant, preferring to spend his days outside the hovel. He had made friends recently, but through a new spell he had learned, one that allowed him to hear the thoughts of others for a short amount of time, he'd found out that he'd made friends in a not so good way. There was strength in numbers, and Baelfire had made friends by joining their ranks. He hadn't told his new friends about what happened when they went to find the Grendel, but he knew that he'd shared more than a tale or two about how he disliked the changes in his father. He'd vowed, then and there, never to use that spell again. Some thoughts he'd rather not know.

Bae would come around. He would. He was angry and confused at the moment, but he'd seen him at his worst, and so he knew that this price he was paying for stripping him of that event was worth it. He just had to wait. He would see. He just needed time. And he was happy to use this time that he had to himself to make his new discoveries, to learn his magic better so that something like what happened in the caves never happened again.

He was making progress, a lot of progress, and very quickly. He was good at this. "Adept" Zoso said. If it wasn't for the fact that his mother became the Black Fairy after he was born, and his father Peter Pan as he'd been a child, he'd have said that he was born magical. No. It must have been somewhere in his bloodline. Somewhere, someone had possessed great power and handed it down to him. Becoming the Dark One had simply brought to life that which once lay dormant. He wouldn't admit to it, because it seemed like such a childish thing to say, but deep down he felt a certain amount of pride at that. For once, he was good at something other than spinning. And this…this wasn't just a fair wage he was achieving now, no! What he was doing now was learning to protect his family, to making sure no one ever harmed Baelfire again, and that he would have the life he always wanted. It was a good thing this confidence he felt. But it had its downsides too, at least if Zoso was to be believed.

"You lack control!" Zoso would shout at him. "You are the Dark One and all Magic has a price, you cannot just do what you like when you'd like to, you have to think! Or else your lack of control will overwhelm your desire for knowledge and lead to folly!"

It was the desire for all that and more that made him thirst for knowledge. More of it. All the time, every spare hour he had! He couldn't learn enough. And tonight, as he'd grown bored with his potions, which suddenly Zoso didn't find so bad, his guides had told him that there was something he needed to see, something that he was ready to read that would answer many of his questions and fill his mind. Zoso had allowed another Dark One to put the image in his head. He'd used his magic to follow. And this was where it led.

He'd never been there, but he knew the way. It was just up ahead, just beyond those trees there. His heart fluttered, matching the anticipation the Dark Ones of the past felt with every step closer he came. It was meant to be a surprise of some kind. Though he found he could access most of the memories they had if he wanted, they were keeping this from him, right along with why he needed to come here.

With excitement, he pulled aside the tree branches, looked up at what they were waiting for him to find, and stopped.

The sight took his breath away.

It was dark out, hardly any moon, but it would have been difficult to miss the towering castle before him. It was made of solid gold. It glimmered even in the lowest of moonlight.

"What is this place?" he muttered looking it over. There wasn't a soul in sight, not a single lit candle in any of the windows…that was odd even for this time of night. Someone was almost always awake in a castle but this castle…it wasn't living. How odd to think of places and things as alive or dead but he did. The stillness suggested no life and the way it's golden stairs and walls were smeared with dried mud, grotesque words painted on the walls with it, the way the leaves blew over the grounds and the grass seemed untamed and the wood clung so close to the walls suggested no one had lived there for many years. He'd seen ruins before, but these were nothing like ruins; and chips and scratches he saw along the bottom parts of the corners made it obvious why. The gold. This wasn't made of stone and morter or straw. This was gold. Pure gold. Obviously, people had tried to take what they could, but the building hadn't come apart. He had a feeling it never would. But why would someone abandon a castle made of gold?

"What happened here?" he questioned further.

"Someone learned how devastating it can be not to have the control you lack."

Inside. Zoso didn't tell him to go, and he didn't need him too. He just knew they wanted him to be inside. There was something there he needed. But they wouldn't say what.

The gold door was heavy, even for him, it creaked on its golden hinges as he opened it. He'd needed such strength he knew that no human would have been able to open it. Suddenly the entire place felt like more than a ruin. It felt like a tomb. Though he could see well in the darkness before him, the darkness inside the castle had a certain unsettling stillness to it that made him wish he'd brought a torch. It was the kind of stillness that lacked any sort of life. It wasn't a tomb, it was was a mausoleum. Inside, he was not surprised to find that the place had been ransacked. Not when he saw that it wasn't just a castle made of gold, it was a castle of gold. There was a table overturned, obviously too big to get out the door or for one man to take by himself, it was made of gold. It held scratches on it just like the outside of the castle did, as if someone had tried to tear it apart. Over in the corner was an overturned chair, it looked as though it had a cushion on it that would have been soft and plush at one time. Now it was hard as a rock, solid gold. On the floor lay a rose, as if it had been dropped in a hasty exit. It gleamed, just as gold as the rest of the castle. The big things remained, but he could see the lack of little items. There was no vase for the flower, no candlesticks or silverware for the table. The glass of a great gold cabinet had been broken, and there was nothing inside of it anymore. The castle was room after room, floor after floor of golden furniture and disaster, evidence of greedy people looking to take what they could but…

There was one room, upstairs, in the tower. This. This was what he was supposed to see. This was what he was supposed to understand. Zoso said not a word to him about it, nor any of the others inside his head. But he knew it was true the second he stepped inside. They wanted him to see. But see what?

There was something about this room. While the rest of the castle had been ransacked, this room had been left nearly untouched. A fine layer of dust covered the floor, dulling the gleam of the gold. It was a typical bedroom for a royal, he supposed. It wasn't as though he'd ever seen one, but in his mind, this was what he'd always pictured it would be and several Dark Ones whispered confirmations of his suspicion. Trinkets littered the surface of the furniture. There was a dressing table, with bottles of what looked like perfume upon it. A woman's room then. Yes. There was a dress hanging over a chair as if waiting for a servant to pick it up for cleaning. There was a four-poster bed in the center with its curtains drawn. And on the far side of the wall, more curtains, gold as the others, but-

Something winked at him as he looked around. That wasn't terribly difficult with so much metal in one place, but it caught his eye, and he felt a prod to investigate. It came from behind the curtains of the bed. The closer he drew the more he could feel the knot in his stomach tightening. The sheets, they were not made up perfectly like the other blankets and clothes he'd seen in the castle, they were disturbed as if someone were-

"Oh!"

He gasped and jumped back as horror flared through him. For a moment, in his fear, he'd completely forgotten he was the Dark One and wanted nothing more than to run from the room, but he tripped on a shoe that had been left on the floor and fell with a crash.

He stared at the bed, half expecting to hear screams or shouts, but the room was quiet as ever. Not even Zoso swayed.

He should have left. He should have just picked himself up and gone back home, back to Bae. But…he couldn't. His curiosity got the best of him. Slowly he rose to his feet once more, looked behind the curtain, and though his heart hammered at the first sight of it, he didn't run or feel fear as he looked the scene over carefully this time.

There was a girl, no more than eight or nine. She was sitting up in her bed, and it appeared she might have been crying as her hands covered her face, but no sound came from her. She was made of solid gold. Everything was gold. Her flesh, her hair, her bed, her nails, even her nightgown! It was all frozen there as if…as if she'd been…

There on the sleeve of her gown he saw it. What had once been the fabric of her shift wasn't as loose as it was on her other arm, it was pressed tight to her skin. There was an imprint there. He held his breath and tried to ignore the rush of blood in his ears as he reached his shaking hand out over it and set it into the cool metal. It was too big for his own hand, but the imprint was a match. She'd been touched.

"What is this? Why have you brought me here? What happened?" he demanded, rising to look at Zoso who stood motionless by the door.

"We brought you here to see what comes from lack of control," he hissed. "You are a smart man Rumpelstiltskin, and now you are a powerful man. I'd hate for something bad to happen to Baelfire because you can't control your own strength!"

"I will never hurt Baelfire! Never!"

Zoso chuckled. "That's what the King said about his daughter when he was warned. But one night she had a nightmare, he didn't think about his actions, and…" Zoso motioned to the world around him.

He glanced back at the bed behind him. The girl, the King's daughter…how had he managed this.

"That's the other reason we brought you here. It's time you find the answer to that and more, the answer that all Dark Ones must possess. Listen. It calls to you…"

Before his eyes, Zoso vanished. The voices in his head quieted, but he understood immediately what it all meant. It was a test of some kind. He had to find something in this castle using knowledge that wasn't his own. Using their knowledge.

He cast one final glance at the bed behind him and left the room. What he was supposed to find, it wasn't there, not in this room. This room had served it's purpose for him, and now it was time to leave it. Outside the tower once more he was confronted with halls, options, and choices he had to make. It was a big castle and he didn't even really know what he was looking for. How was he supposed to know where to begin.

Left. Down.

It wasn't a voice speaking to him. It was instinct, knowledge. It was like living in another's memory. He'd been here before. When he was Zoso. Left down the corridor, down the stairs. All the way down. To the gilded gold basement. It was dingy. Almost completely empty with the exception of a large wooden table, unsurprisingly made of gold, that might have at one point been used for preparing food. And, there in the corner, on its side, a Saxony Wheel; like the one he'd learned on. It was that moment of nostalgia that made him go forward to right it. It would never work. Not again. Not with the gold weighing the wheel down. Not unless he could-

_Focus!_

The command brought him out of his stupor. He wasn't here to see the wheel, as much as he wanted to explore with it. He was here for another reason. What was he supposed to find?

It was by the hearth.

No. It was the hearth.

Behind the hearth.

Whatever "it" was.

He had never worked with this magic before. He didn't know the spell that came to his head, only that he could do it. Standing several feet away, he made an imaginary line around the hearth and traced it in the air. He had to get at what was behind the fireplace.

From deep in his chest, he felt a tug, a verification, magic matching magic. The gold melted into a liquid that pooled around the bottom of the hearth and then disappeared into the gold masonry as if it had never been there. He could, if he wanted to, push the stone aside, but he didn't want to. And he knew he didn't need to. He turned his hand, jerked his fingers as he would if he were beckoning Baelfire and watched as the gold stone slid out of place and to the side, leaving an empty stone crevice behind it that somehow was not gold. Inside it was the only other non-gold item he'd seen since stepping foot in this place. A large trunk.

That was it. That was what he was supposed to find. He was so confident and yet...confused. All this for that?!

He stepped inside and carefully lifted the lid, unsure of what he might find. Books. Tons of books! Books that were falling apart, books that were brand new, books in his own language, books in languages he didn't recognize, and-

That was odd. He didn't recognize the languages. But he could read them. And…yes. He did recognize them. He'd never been taught these languages, never learn anything outside of his own language. But he knew this language. Frankish. From a faraway land he'd never been to. And he wanted to read it but…not this passage, no. Another passage. In another book. That one. The one with the brown cover, relatively new, maybe only a couple of decades old. He wanted to read…this passage! Three fourths through the book.

_January 19th The King of Gildery summoned me through forces I was not prepared for and he would not reveal to me. He requested gold. After some conversation I decided to grant his request. He would not make a deal for the magic that had summoned me, so instead we made a deal that when he begged me to take his magical gift away he would give me anything I requested. He has been granted the Touch of Gold._

"Touch of Gold…" he breathed, looking around. He knew what that meant, even without Zoso suddenly popping in to inform him.

"Everything he touched turned to gold. My predecessor oversaw that deal. Tried to convince him it wasn't something he wanted but he insisted." He made a motion toward the book in his hand. "Read on…see how it ends."

Read on. Read on, but…the information wasn't in the next passage, he knew that! He knew it without reading it! It was later. Months later. July. He paged quickly ahead to those entries, nearly at the back of the book and opened it up to the one he wanted.

_July 31st-The King of Gildery summoned me back. When his ten-year-old daughter awoke in the night with nightmares he attempted to comfort her. He did not think and when he placed his hand on her, he turned her to gold. He begged me to take the power back and I demanded to know the magic he summoned me with. It was a charm cast by a witch. Long ago. Now it is ash, and I've taken to his gold castle, empty as it is. It is a bit pretentious for a Dark One to live in a castle made of gold. But at least it shall serve as a sign for all who think they may get the better of me._

"He lived here."

"Before I found the dagger and murdered him for the power. The fool always kept it close. A little bit of surprise and luck were on my side as I wrestled it from him and then commanded him to be still and took his power for myself. I lived here myself for a few years before the Duke found my hiding spot in the woods and forced me out. In my absence, the villagers have obviously had their way with it."

"Had their way"…because the Dark One lived there before and before that…

"The King…what happened to the King."

Zoso chuckled. "He remained King but died a heartbroken man. He fled this place in an attempt to forget, but he never could. For the one who came before me did in fact remove the curse from his hand, but left him with a warning. Not all magic can be destroyed Rumpelstiltskin. The Touch of Gold, cannot. And so it lives in his bloodline, within the children he had after, waiting for the day that it will show itself once more. Perhaps that young man will be far more worthy than he was."

Perhaps. What an awful tale. What an awful place this was! But the story wasn't the reason he was brought here. The story was to prove a point to him, a point that was increasingly clear. He was immortal. It wasn't just about the immediate future anymore. He had to look beyond. He had to make smart decisions. Smarter decisions than the King had. It was a good lesson. But not the reason he was here.

These books. They were the reason.

"What are these?"

"We call them The Chronicles."

"The Chronicles?"

"Every Dark One from the beginning has kept them. Some have filled up only a few pages, others entire volumes and multiples at that. So many of us all talking at once it can be difficult to sort us all out. These should help you. They are is the knowledge you've been seeking. Read them. Understand them. Learn from the mistakes of your past and begin keeping one of your own. With any luck, you'll finally understand yourself. You are not the first smart man to take on the power of the Dark One Rumpelstiltskin."

Zoso was gone. He left him there to read, to either store the Chronicles where they were hidden now or find his own place. He would opt for the latter. His Aunt's house would do just fine for their storage. Bae wouldn't find them there he could take in and everything that they offered him. As for the rest of this place…

He was happy to leave it behind. To leave all of it behind, including the girl upstairs. Let her be a reminder. Let this place be pillaged and laid to waste. Let people know the price of magic. Then, maybe, they'd have less use for him.

He was just about to go when the golden Saxony Wheel caught his eye one more time. There was so much gold here, it was almost disgusting. But this one thing, this one item, to him and probably him alone, it was beautiful. He could only think of what a wheel like that would fetch at a market. Or, what a wheel like that might make if…

He had an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean...the series is called The Dark One Chronicles. At some point in time we knew that these beauties had to show up, right? But this chapter was more than about the Chronicles although they play a major part in it. I suppose what I'm trying to put on display is the knowledge of the Dark Ones and that the stuff in their heads is not necessarily like an open book. The Dark Ones can choose what to divulge and when. Some of them, like Nimue keep secrets, others go silent and give hints, and there are a few who are open books. I like to think that their time as Dark Ones directly correlates with how much knowledge they share up front, but that's just me. I had to do it this way for one reason and one reason only. Season five. That's it. That's the reason. Rumple has the Dark One Chronicles in his possession in season five, Emma never gets them. Why? In this I surmised that Emma simply never got to the point that she was "ready" for them as Rumple did. This method also explains why Nimue is able to hide her true purpose from Emma but share it with Killian. It's a weird thing. They're not living beings anymore and in the next fiction we will see that Rumple gains full control over all of them, even Nimue, at a certain point, they're memories...but they're also able to think. I think of them kind of like Tom Riddle's memory in Harry Potter. It's a memory but a memory that has a certain amount of control. More on that later!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments! I hope you like this chapter, I hope you'll like the next section of chapters as, like I said, I'm kind of partial to them! They are a lot like this one in some ways. Rumple learning, exploring, getting to use and understand his power...I love it. I hope you do too! Peace and Happy Reading!


	28. Spinning Gold

He had an idea.

And a memory. A memory of a story his aunts had once told him of one of their sisters and a magical ability she'd had. He wondered...could he do the same?

His nights were filled with magical learning and study but his days were spent sitting in front of the spinning wheel, working the wool, sending Bae into town to sell it, bartering and trading. For what? Gold? Money? All the while, Baelfire's childhood slipped farther and farther away. It seemed silly when he stared at the golden spinning wheel he'd retrieved from the golden castle and the memory of his aunt's story returned to him. What if he didn't need to spin thread? What if he could do as his aunt's sister and spin something much more valuable? What if he could cut out the middle man?

Magic couldn't be destroyed, but it could be redirected, Zoso, and the other Dark Ones had taught him that. And the magic held within that wheel…it called to him. Some small part of him recognized it as his own even if he hadn't been the one to set the spell. And that part of him knew what to do the moment he had it back in his aunt's house. And now, on this night, with Baelfire asleep at home and a basket of raw wool he'd brought from home at his side, he was ready to see if his idea was worth weight…or gold. It was powerful, unguided magic, and so he held the dagger tight in one hand, then reached out with his other, and touched the wheel.

It was far more strenuous than he thought it would be. His brow furrowed and beads of sweat broke out over his forehead as the joints in his fingers stiffened with the intensity of it. But when he heard a small creak, he opened his eyes and saw that it was working. The magic wasn't disappearing, it might look that way to the naked, untrained eye, but he could see differently. He could see it was just receding, changing. The wheel had creaked from the loss of the weight of gold as it became ordinary wood, sitting in its cradle once more. The wheel, the drive band, the treadle, all the way through The Mother-of-All, he watched as the gold slowly receded leaving behind sturdy solid wood, until it reached the flyer assemblage. Yes, that was where the magic would happen, that was where he would redirect it.

His task done he practically tossed the dagger away and sat down at the wheel on the same stool he'd once learned to use a Saxony Wheel on. It seemed quite a bit shorter now than when he was a child, but he couldn't pay attention to that as he settled before it and worked the wool perfectly into place, his fingers flying with muscle memory. Then he began. Wool in hand, he stepped on the treadle, and the wheel whirled to life once more like a butterfly given new life. Faster and faster he spun it, just as he always had. He purposefully didn't watch the bobbin as he worked, instead he watched the wheel, preferring to let himself think, even for a few extra seconds, that it might be working rather than find out if it was failing. But eventually the time came, and his eyes automatically shifted from the wheel to the bobbin and-

Gold.

He stopped pushing on the treadle and examined the flash he'd seen a bit closer, preparing himself all the while for it to have been simply the way the firelight caught the wool. But no.

It was gold. He had turned wool, into gold. Precious metal! Just like his aunts' sister had! Why…if he spun the rest of this he'd have enough for the entire year! More than that! Gold like this would probably be more than he'd ever seen in his life!

It was everything!

It was toys for Bae. Good food. A new roof! New clothes! A servant!

His mind spun with the sudden reality that he could hire someone to do the cooking and cleaning for him. He could have more time for magic, to learn his craft. More time to spend with Baelfire. More time to do anything he wanted all because he could now make the money they needed so desperately to survive, the money that Bae needed to survive!

And so he did. He began to live differently; the life of a peasant in the daytime, spinning his wool and selling it with Bae, but at night, he spun gold and began to trade it for anything he could. And the people, though they didn't trust him, were desperate to trade. The people in town were becoming desperate for something now that the rumors about the sea not rising as it should and fish not returning were beginning to run rampant. Some of them thought they were being punished for having him in their village, for being home to such evil. It never stopped them from trading with them, not since they grew hungry.

Still, to him it was only thread, golden, true, but thread all the same. He only saw how truly valuable it was when he heard that after giving one family an entire bobbin worth, they'd been able to pack up and leave town entirely. After that he realized he didn't have to use too much. He could be stingy, giving them only a few inches of the precious gold at a time. Without having to mass-produce the stuff, it left him more time to read the chronicles, to focus on other things he was interested in like freezing the situation around him and creating fire. It made sitting down at the wheel once a night an enjoyable experience again, calming…at least until she showed up.

"A fine accomplishment to be sure."

He glanced up at the familiar, but unexpected, voice. For once it wasn't Zoso making an appearance. It was her. It was Nimue.

"You…"

"Who else?" she questioned. Who else...Zoso, was his guide, Zoso was the one he had come to expect. Nimue never showed up without some kind of reason. Her sudden presence made him suspicious. He watched as she wandered over to the place he kept the trunk filled with the Chronicles. She peered inside.

"I see you've made good use of these."

Well…yes and no. He'd looked through a few of them in his spare time but hadn't really sat down to read them as he probably should have. He'd been too interested in his spinning wheel.

"And a fine bit of magic you've managed there Rumpelstiltskin. Truly great. But I think you are ready for more."

"Where is Zoso?" he questioned watching her out of the corner of his eye. He knew he should fear her. The others did. What they had was an odd mix of fear and reverence for the first of the Dark Ones. But he'd been fearful before this curse, and while he respected who she was and had been, he refused to be afraid again. Especially not of a long-dead voice in his head.

"Funny you should think all that when that's exactly where Zoso is, Rumple. Dead. As he's always been. He's nothing but one of those voices in your head, just as I am."

"Then why is it you here and not him?"

"Because this voice believes you are finally ready."

"Ready for what?"

"The truth. Your true purpose."

His true purpose? There was a purpose to the Dark One?

"Mmm…I see you found this old thing…"

He watched as she reached into the trunk filled with chronicles and extracted not a book, but the mask. He had found it before, the first time he'd gone through the Chronicles. In fact, he'd discovered there was more than books and that mask in the trunk the first day he'd raided it. There were relics; small knick-knacks that he assumed belonged to other Dark Ones. A couple of girls seemed ecstatic that he'd found a ribbon. A man rejoiced with the discovery of a thimble. Another voice roared with furry as he found a frame that he knew once held a picture of his mother that had long since worn away. But he'd heard nothing but silence when he'd picked up the old wooden mask. Suddenly, as he watched Nimue pick it up he had a flash of a memory that didn't belong to him, and everything fell quickly into recognition. He understood.

"It's yours," he muttered. "The mask belonged to you."

"Actually it belonged to Vortigan, if we're being precise," she answered rather matter-of-factly. "I merely relieved him of it when I became the Dark One. After I killed him of course."

Vortigan. He'd never heard that name before not even whispered in his head. But then again, Nimue wasn't one for conversation. The others whispered, but she, like himself, seemed perfectly content to watch.

"I've let thoughtless action dictate my life before and come up regretting it in the end. I find these days it's better to think first and act later if necessary. You are like that in some ways, and it'll get you far. It's what I'm counting on. But of course…I have been let down before."

"You speak in riddles."

"As so many of us learn to do. It's a tool of our trade: deal-making. That is what we've become known for, but it's not our purpose. It never has been. It's merely become something to distract the public from finding out what we're really on this earth do to."

"And what are we here to do?"

The corners of her lips curled up in a smile that he knew was supposed to mean she was happy, but it reminded him of a snake. Worse, it reminded him of that hunger he'd seen in his father's eyes the first time he'd shown an interest in sleight of hand.

"It's time you learn all that Rumpelstiltskin. It's time you learn our story, all of it. It's time you learn my story." She abandoned the mask in the trunk and crossed the room in three steps. "Take a peek inside my head…" she whispered, then reached out and touched the tip of her middle finger to his forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everything, there is a first. Up until this point, Rumple has only spun wool into thread and yarn. There had to be a first for spinning gold. I hadn't initially intended for it to go here, but as I was writing I found that this was a good place to put it. In the end, I went back to the previous chapter and added the spinning wheel from the Golden Castle specifically so that it could fit into this chapter.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you RolfB for your awesome comments and loyalty throughout this fiction! I know this is a slow chapter, but the good news is that the next chapter is not. One of the things this chapter does is transition into the next chapter which, I think, you might find to be a bit controversial among you, but is actually my favorite chapter of all. It totally connects Rumple to Nimue and season five and I love getting these moments to bring everything full circle! Peace and Happy Reading!


	29. Scenes of the Past and Future Purposes

All at once he was overcome with flashes of people and places he'd never seen, memories he'd never lived through but experienced all the same. Each one passed before his mind's eye in just a moment, an entire life in only a second. Parents. Merlin. A village. Vortigan. A cup, a castle, siblings, a murder, a stone, Excalibur, love, the dagger, Merlin, a village, brothers, ruins, Merlin, a mask, a heart, sisters, the feel of a sword breaking in two in his hand. A purple-white flower.

His mind struggled to sort he memories and his head began to pound When he opened his eyes and suddenly was aware he couldn't remember closing them. More than that, when he'd closed his eyes he'd been in his aunts' house, now he was in a field. A field far from anything if the noise the night bugs made were any indication. The grass was high, as if it hadn't been tended to in years and all around the absence of life, horses, humans, sheep, and even goats made the place feel like he was walking through a graveyard. But there was the smell of something sweet in the air. Something sweet that reminded him of running through these fields as a girl, when the grass was freshly cut, the neighbors were friendly, and white flowers grew up from the ground. They always had the sweetest of smells.

"I know this place," he muttered to himself, realizing he wasn't living in his own memories, but rather in hers. This was Oxleigh.

"Or what's left of it," Nimue muttered beside him.

"Yes…" He looked around again and found that reality blended surprisingly well with images of the past. He saw ghosts of children running and playing, houses on fire, women hanging up their laundry to dry, others screaming as they ran from someone or something, the dirt street was brown, then a second later it was a river of red, and kind, inviting houses were suddenly turned to rubble as his eyes fell on a familiar unreal face.

"Vortigan," Nimue whispered behind him.

Yes. It was the mask that he wore that he found familiar. It was the same one that he had found in the trunk, only it didn't belong to Nimue, not at the moment. It belonged to her would-be killer. Vortigan. This was his doing. Her childhood unfolded before his eyes quickly so that he was living year after year all at one time. Mother, Father, sisters, and brothers, all living happily in this beautiful village of white flowers, when…

They were all killed. Slaughtered by Vortigan. He was screaming, ranting and raving about The Holy Grail, a cup, as he cut down every man, woman, and child. The image in his mind shifted. He was in the back of the house, plucking the seeds from the Middlemist Flowers to grow more when the tragedy struck. She'd acted on instinct when she heard her families screams, fleeing into the woods with nothing more than the seeds of her village in her hand. Nimue.

"I fled with nothing but those seeds and the image of a man with a mask in my head. It was only when I was safe atop a large hill that I looked back and saw what had become of my village and family. They were nothing but flames. Everyone in my village, everyone from my two-month-old sister to my father was dead, the village and our flowers razed to the ground.

"It's time…let's move on…"

Whether he was ready or not didn't matter. The scene around him shifted. It was still night, still quiet, but now he had the feeling of going back in time for in this was a village. Clearly an active and lively one at that. Here laundry hung on lines, swaying in the gentle breeze. Large spits were still smoldering, their duty of cooking for the night gone, and inside the homes, he could see flickers of light through their windows, fires keeping one and all warm inside as they slept. It was as if he'd gone back in time to see Oxleigh in it's prime.

"You've gone nowhere in time, Rumpelstiltskin, such feats are impossible, even for us. But this village is certainly more than it looks. For this is where I heard tale that a magical healer and powerful sorcerer lived and helped others."

"Merlin…" The name came to him easily enough, and as soon as it did, he could see him. Tall and handsome, a perfect smile that could leave a girl feeling weak in the knees, obviously powerful, but so gentle that one immediately felt as though he was someone who would pick up a small child and heal a skinned knee whether they'd earned it or not. He was charming.

"Charming, and handsome, and more than I'd ever expected to find," Nimue explained. "I'd sought him out hoping he might help me get revenge on Vortigan by helping the seeds I'd carried with me to grow again. We planted them in his village, his magic allowed them to grow, and something beyond plants flourished in our meeting. The village adopted me, and Merlin and I spent time here, growing, laughing, learning to love one another."

"You were in love. He…he was your true love."

"If you believe in such notions, yes. We were planning to marry, but there was something standing in our way, dark secrets that we were both hiding from one another. Being a good and decent man, he confessed to me the nature of his immortality. He told me how he had found the Holy Grail, drank from it, and was granted eternal life and magic. He was fearful of wedding me for he did not want to watch me age and grow old without him. He confessed that he still had the Grail and I suggested that I drink from it so I might be like him, young and immortal forever."

"But you carried a secret from him too," he inserted, knowing the story before he'd ever been told it. "The Flowers, Merlin, the Grail…they weren't enough…"

In the middle of a dark night, he would have thought it was impossible to see things such as shadow, but he watched as one crossed Nimue's face. She stared at a well in the middle of the town. It was bigger now that it had been then. The houses were different too. He'd never been here before, but he found himself feeling oddly nostalgic for it. It felt like home.

"No. It wasn't. Merlin refused to share the grail with me, wanting instead to weaken himself back to the state of ordinary so that he might live with me, just two ordinary, insignificant people, to live and die together. He had an idea, to reforge the Grail into a sword, one that might cut his ties to immortality, similar to the way the Fates use their Scissors of Destiny. We set off and, on the way, walked through my old village. A spark, a fire I didn't even know I'd been carrying, roared to life and I felt a calling clear as day. Flowers were not enough to make up for the loss that I felt, and it was not enough to make up for the lives that Vortigan had taken. What was a flower compared to a life? To dozens of lives? It was nothing."

"So you drank from the Grail. You waited until his back was turned…and you drank."

"I realized at that moment that magic could be used to do more good than the kind of good that Merlin was doing. And I was certain that I could convince him before he used the sword that a hundred thousand lifetimes together doing that good would be far better than a few measly years before one of us succumbed to disease or danger and death. But not before! Not before he'd destroyed that cup so that no one would ever take from it again, not before he'd destroyed the one thing that Vortigan always wanted."

"Vortigan, the cups…"

"They littered the street when we walked through my village. Merlin put it together. If he hadn't, I might have confessed my deed right then and there, we'd have turned around, and all might be different."

"But you didn't."

"No. He was nearby, watching us, Merlin sensed him easily enough and once I'd drunk, I could too. And I wanted nothing more than take everything he'd ever wanted from him! To make him watch as it disappeared in flame as I had. And now, Rumpelstiltskin, it's time to see where you were made."

There was no village this time. It was just woods. Woods…and something else.

"The Spark of Prometheus. Humankind's first flame. It was said to burn eternally, and Merlin was convinced that since the Grail was of the gods the spark was the only thing strong enough to alter the grail.

"He was right. I stood right where you are standing now and watched as he melted down that cup and crafted it into a sword, sharp, intricate, and beautiful. But deadly to both of us if I couldn't show him the dangers of it.

"Oh!" Nimue moaned suddenly. "For a few beautiful moments, it was all worth it! For a few wonderful seconds, I knew Vortigan watched in the shrubs as we fashioned the thing he wanted most into something new that could never bring him the power he wanted, and it felt so…sweet!"

Nimue sighed, and a smile crossed her lips, but he knew better. He knew that those seconds had ended. Looking at the stone forge, the monument before him, he knew that her plan hadn't worked. She used to act before she thought, and now she preferred careful thought prior to action…this was why.

"You let him kill you," he discovered searching her memories on his own. "You let Vortigan kill you so Merlin would have to watch you die."

"As a reminder of what death could do, to change his mind!" she yelled, her tone argumentative and defensive, as if she were trying to prove something or else convince herself. "But I could never have let him destroy Vortigan! That was a justice that belonged to me and me alone."

He saw the exchange. He saw the masked man appear out of the woods, the way Nimue had seen the opportunity in disclosing his presence and attacking him herself! Pain. He felt it in his side as Vortigan drove something sharp through her, took the sword, and she allowed him to make off with it, knowing that Merlin wouldn't allow him to take it, knowing that he would avenge her. She healed herself as he did. Rose to her feet as Merlin sobbed, recounting the man's sins but she was too taken! She wanted his heart! And thanks to magic, she knew she could get it! She was shorter than he was. And stronger. And Merlin didn't even see her until Vortigan dropped to his knees quivering and shaking before her. She felt every emotion she knew she would, and yet more than she knew she could. Power. Joy. Might. Anger. Pain. Sorrow. Fury.

But not sympathy. She hadn't an ounce of that. Not for this man. Not even despite Merlin's pleas.

"He discovered what you'd done. He told you not to crush it."

"He told me it would destroy my magic."

"That such a dark deed would darken your soul as well. He plead with you, for you…you didn't listen."

"How could I allow for such a man to live on?"

She'd crushed his heart, and just as Merlin had predicted, it had changed her. Her skin darkened, grew stiff and hard as her heart. Her outer appearance was only a reflection of what was on the inside. But it wasn't bad. It was just a different way of dispensing justice. And if Merlin had it his way…

She'd grabbed the sword before he could even have such a thought, before he could use it to strip her of her newfound magic and power. And for good measure, she'd slammed that sword into the rock so hard the metal was cut in two. She'd crushed his heart, destroyed his chance of mortality, and though she'd said the words, as Vortigan's rotting body lay nearby, she couldn't be truly sorry for it. The world was a better place without him. She took his mask, a prize to cover her own scaled face from view. The flames, behind her they were gone, but an ember remained. She'd leave him with his precious sword, split in two it was worthless to him. But if he reforged it-

"Nimue!"

The cry came from him as she scorched her hand on the burning ember and vanished into the night.

"It wasn't long after that I created the vaults, places around the realm that I could hide when I needed to and call home. After that, I crafted for myself a careful persona, calling myself the Dark One and doing my best to deal justice. And so here we are Rumpelstiltskin…the present."

The stone forge was gone from his view, replaced with the noises of empty woods. Empty woods, with something to hide. The moonlight revealed it, a small flash caught its blade and drew him closer to the boulder sitting a fair distance from them. It was a stone, and stuck inside of it-the sword.

"He called it Excaliber, left it here in this rock, hidden in the woods as a challenge. Only the True Ruler of this Kingdom, Merlin's Kingdom, can pull it free. And an unexpected surprise it'll be for them when they do…"

Because it wasn't the full sword. The tip was missing. The tip…the edges of the sword disappearing into the depths of the stone were oddly crooked and wavy! He'd seen it before! It was-

"Yes, Rumpelstiltskin. My hasty action on that day doomed me, doomed us all, for while I saw no danger in leaving the pieces of the sword behind, it enabled Merlin to stop me. He used the severed piece of Excalibur to craft a dagger, a piece of metal that we all must kowtow to now. It was the only way to keep us bound, to prevent us from running the world unchecked. But once again, Merlin failed to anticipate the true depth of human depravity. Those who have held the dagger have not always been as noble as Merlin was."

"Was…"

He felt his hands curl up and over his shoulders. "Take a look for yourself."

The forest was gone, replaced with another clearing. In the distance there was a tall tower, it's windows darkened. And before him, a tall, thick willow tree. But he could sense the tree was more than it seemed. It was breathing. It was alive. It was Merlin.

"A single tear. That was all I needed to fell my dear Merlin," she confessed. "I loved him dearly, but the more I crafted the persona of the Dark One, the more he fought against me. I couldn't let him take who I was from me, I couldn't let him distract me from my new purpose, a purpose which would have allowed us to be together again! And then he made the dagger and tried to take my freedom?! It couldn't be helped. It wasn't easy, being strong never is, and I couldn't bring myself to truly destroy him, so instead I turned him into a tree," she explained coming closer and resting her hand upon it. She moved it in a single gentle stroke up and down its trunk and looked it up and down as if it held his face. But it didn't. He knew that without looking. "I imagine I'll come to regret that decision someday. But all I cared about on that day was that I had the dagger in my own hand. My future was mine, my freedom my own, and some day, when I had succeeded in my purpose, I'd set him free, and Merlin would find we could be together again. The pair of us. With no boundaries to separate us."

"Our true purpose…"

She glanced over at him from her place by the tree and nodded. She turned back to the tree, then after giving it a final pat and a kiss on the trunk, her eyes narrowed on him once more and a smirk spread over her mouth. "Imagine a world where you didn't have to hide, Rumpelstiltskin. A world where your son wasn't conflicted because silly things like Light and Dark, good and bad didn't exist."

She was trying to tell him something without telling him. For a moment he thought it meant simply the destruction of all magic, but after a few moments of probing his mind, probing her mind, he had a new answer. She didn't want to get rid of all magic…just half of it.

"But to destroy all Light Magic-"

"It's against everything you are! Everything we are!" she hissed stepping closer, her eyes suddenly went wide and wild. "It took me a long time to see, to understand…what separated Merlin and I was not what I'd done or how we behaved. It was magic! The presence of his Light Magic and my Dark Magic! It was constantly in opposition, and thus we were constant enemies all because a silly thing called Light magic! The solution was obvious."

"Destroy the Light Magic."

"Every Dark One has tried, or at least those who have known about this, after they've proved themselves to me."

"And I've proved myself?"

At his question Nimue immediately changed. Her untamed eyes grew softer and gentler, her lips curved up in a delicate smile, but she still seemed fearsome. It was as if the face she was wearing now was the mask. "You're clever Rumpelstiltskin. Naturally curious and hard working. Your instinct to preserve your own life is impressive. You don't know how long I've been waiting for someone like you to possess this curse. To finish what I started. Look there…"

She pointed at something just over his shoulder, and he turned to follow her order. It was hard to make out in the darkness as there was no light coming from it, but the stars, or lack of them against the building, gave it's presence away. It was the tall tower he'd seen once and forgotten about. Now that he was studying it, it looked like a spire, like something that belonged on a castle. Her memories told him what it was.

"Merlin's Tower," he muttered. Their former home when they'd been lovers.

"Inside that tower are all the answers. Everything Merlin ever wrote, everything he ever invented and dreamed about. The solution to destroying all Light Magic…all you have to do is figure out a way in. He barred it from me using magic just after I became this and it's you who will find a way around his spells and into that sanctuary. Using the chronicles and your brains…you'll make it eventually. I have faith in you."

He'd make it eventually. Into a building no other Dark One had succeeded in breaking into. He'd make it…

Something about her story didn't seem right about what she was tasking him with.

"Well then why not do it yourself?" he questioned, looking back over his shoulder at her. She was dead. A voice in his head, nothing more. Who was she to give orders and expect of him what she hadn't done while she had the opportunity when she lived.

"Watch your thoughts boy!" she snapped as a terrible sneer grew under her nose. "I may be dead, but some day you will help to return me to this world and you'll see what I can do!"

"Why didn't you do this?" he demanded again, ignoring her idle threats. No one could return from the grave. "You defeated Merlin years before you were destroyed. Why couldn't you do it?"

She let a guttural noise of irritation escape from her throat and whipped around to face the tree again. "Merlin is gone, but that wretched apprentice of his…he's become the true trickster!"

"An apprentice?"

"A boy he met who needed a home, one he saw fit to provide as well as teach him everything he knew. He's become just as powerful as Merlin himself. How he found a way to survive all these years-"

"He's still alive?!"

Nimue nodded. "Oh yes. He'd like for you to believe he's dead, but he's not. Merlin set him on his own quests, tasking him with the guardianship of knowledge. He alone chooses the Recorder, the Writer, the Author, a being who isn't magical but is given a magical pen and is charged with keeping all the stories of this world."

"This world?"

"There are many, Rumpelstiltskin. Trust that you will encounter them one day as well as the Apprentice. He keeps himself hidden, hiding in the lowest of ways. Every Dark One has tried, some, including your predecessor have gotten close, but still found themselves unable to defeat him. The author's pen, Merlin's hat, Excalibur, he guards them all. He keeps the magic here safe. To find a way around the Apprentice is to find a way to Merlin's knowledge and the destruction of Light Magic so that we might once more walk this realm and rule it together, for the true good of all."

He gasped and suddenly found that he wasn't where he'd been a few moments ago. He was home. Or rather he was right back at his aunts' house, in the chair by the wheel. The fire was still blazing, and Nimue stood before him. His heart was hammering, and suddenly he wasn't sure if he'd ever even left this place, or if he'd simply just lived in her memories. She was different than the other Dark Ones in his mind. She was powerful. And cunning. A potentially deadly combination.

"Keep a careful eye on that dagger, Rumpelstiltskin," she instructed ominously as her eyes slid to the knife he held. "Separated from the rest of Excalibur it doesn't have the power to rid the world of our magic, but if someone kills you with it, they will be able to separate you from your immortality. You will meet your end, and the magic will find it's way into their hands. Keep it safe. It is quite literally the key to your freedom. And to ours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by far my favorite chapter of this fiction, but I know there are more than a few of you who are probably thinking right now "wait! Rumple didn't know all this stuff, did he?" So, here's the thing, we never actually know if Rumple was aware of any of this. This is one of those gray areas where I had to make a choice, and obviously I went with the theory that he did know about this all along. Why did I decide to make this decision? Well, for one thing, I do believe the show makes it very clear that Rumple is the longest Dark One they've ever had and that he's the best at what they do. With the idea that the Dark Ones in his head are like memories, I just don't see how someone could be the best Dark One and have the Chronicles in their possession and not know about this "secret mission" Nimue gives him. The other reason I included it...there's really no reason not to? When I first tackled this subject in Moments, after Rumple woke up, I had to figure out how much he knew and what it would affect, but the truth was that it didn't affect everything. Rumple is missing in Camelot so there's no harm there. Then, in Storybrooke, by the time that Rumple escapes, is safe, and everything really starts to go down, everyone pretty much already knows what's happening so none of his information would be considered "new". "But Treatian, if he knows about this secret mission, why don't we see him attempting to accomplish it on the show?" Hang tight for the next fiction in this series and the last chapter this one because I think that's going to make that question clear! So really...there is no reason why he shouldn't have this knowledge and many more, in my opinion, why he should? Do you agree with me? Disagree? I can't wait to hear about it.
> 
> Many thanks to RolfB for your comments on the last chapter! I appreciate it in leaps and bounds and look forward to those comments day after day! Peace and Happy Reading!


	30. Fire, Steam, and Water

For days after his encounter with Nimue, his head spun nearly as fast as a wheel. He took to the Chronicles with a fervor he hadn't had before, reading encounter after encounter after encounter; deals, Merlin, The Apprentice, Nimue, the Sorcerer's Hat, Excalibur! It wasn't entirely obvious what was going on, but with the extra knowledge he had, he could see them everywhere in the Chronicles. They were written in the form of journals, small entries describing deals, magic, hopes, dreams, and on occasion if that Dark One had been one of the lucky ones chosen by Nimue, their encounters trying to get in the tower. It was protected by some magic spell or other, something incredibly powerful that repelled Dark Magic. Some of the former Dar Ones hadn't gotten close and their ramblings read like the whiny complaints of a young boy who'd been pushed down in the mud. But others, the powerful ones, they had gotten closer. And when they had, they'd found a man in red robes with a long beard appeared before them to tell them their mission was futile. No one would get through to that tower and the treasures it held inside. No one but the Chosen One.

Well fine then. That was good enough for him. Nimue seemed to believe he could be the one to break whatever spell was there, but she'd also believed that because he'd had patience. Clever. Curious. Hardworking. Patient. Those were the traits that she liked. Well, he wasn't going to abandon them now then, and he wasn't about to drop everything and pursue this while he had a son to care for and really was no stronger than the whining Dark Ones who had failed. Keep learning. Keep being curious and clever and working hard and someday, if he had the patience, he might be able to make it to that tower. But for now, there was work to be done. For now, he had magic to master.

Alone in his secret cabin, each night after Bae went to sleep, he worked, and studied, and spun more gold thread than he was certain they would ever need in Bae's lifetime, but he was immortal now, he could keep Bae young as well, just as soon as he got good enough at his magic. He had to think beyond this lifetime. There were many before them, and there were two things that he wanted to learn more than anything.

Freezing time was handy. It was a simple thing that according to the books, was accomplished only by very talented wizards. Though, it wasn't freezing time exactly, no one had achieved that yet, it was more…freezing the environment. Time would pass, but if done correctly, with a wave of his hand, those in the room would cease to move, they could be silenced mid-sentence, and then brought out of it again without knowing anything had ever happened to them. He liked that idea. So did the Dark Ones in his head. Instantly stories, visions, and scenarios of times when that would have helped, even a few times it had helped, filled his head. Those who had mastered that art encouraged him, egged him on, giving advice — those who hadn't cheered for him.

He hadn't taken the warning about starting small seriously enough in the beginning and practiced in front of the flames in the hearth. He needed something that moved frequently so that he could tell whether or not it had worked, but he didn't want something that moved rapidly out in the open like a rabbit or bird. The fire seemed perfect. So he practiced and practiced and practiced until his brow was covered in sweat, he was out of breath, and he felt as though his eyes were bulging! The image of the fire he'd stared at for so long was burned into his memory, and he had a headache. Being the Dark One that pain was quickly silenced, the voices were not.

 _"Start smaller!"_ one of the voices hissed at him, more out of irritation than a desire to be helpful.

He was just looking around the cabin, wondering what on earth he could use when he spotted a candle. That was certainly smaller! The sun would be rising soon, he had an hour or so until Bae stirred and he needed to be back at the house, an hour or so to master this or the entire night was a loss. He set the candle on what used to be their old dining table and began his practicing. He tried. He pictured it. He saw so perfectly in his mind the wave of his hand, the burst of magic that would follow, and then the stillness of the dancing flame that for a moment he believed it truly was in his mind.

He stared at the candle for a moment, expecting at any moment for a flicker to rise up and disappoint him. But it never happened. Excitement stirred in his chest as he rose out of his seat, circled the table, searching for any imperfections…then bumped into the corner. Instantly he felt the magic shatter as the candle flickered back to life. But his disappointment was only momentary. He smiled as he sat back down, confidently waved his hand, and watched it happen all over again.

 _"Now the sky is the limit!"_ one of the voices congratulated. He felt himself nod in agreement.

"There is no limit…"

This new ability consumed him for weeks as he pressed forward, once he was able to freeze and unfreeze the candle at will he turned back to the fireplace, then moved on to some laundry hanging on a line, blowing in a breeze, then his wheel, when he set it to spin with a mighty push, some birds and vermin he found in the woods were his next target and finally he found himself on the road in the middle of the night. When a lone man wandered by, he waved his hand, watched as he and the cart he was pulling behind him froze in place. He walked up to him, stood before him, waved a hand in front of glassy eyes, then returned to the place he had been hiding, waved his hand once more, and watched as the man continued walking, unaware he'd ever seen a man standing before him.

He was proud and confident. He'd saved learning to create fire for last because he had thought it might be difficult. Anger was necessary to create it, and he didn't feel like a very angry individual. He'd hoped that the confidence he felt from his latest accomplishments might help, but they hadn't.

"You feel too good about yourself," Zoso informed him as he stared at his hand, constantly opening and closing it in an attempt to start the fire there on his palm as the book said.

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" he snapped at him. He was trying, he didn't need commentary from his predecessor.

Zoso laughed. "At the moment it seems to be exactly what you need! It's hard to feel anger if you feel pride. But of course, I can understand why an old crippled coward, the likes of you would want to feel pride over anger. You've had so little to be proud of in your life."

"Be quiet," he snapped at him over his shoulder. He knew what he was trying to do but it wouldn't work. He was trying to concentrate.

"First parents who are more content to gather other children to their sides rather than their own miserable excuse of flesh. A wife who loved another and came to detest you."

"That's enough."

"A town that called you coward, and a soldier who was all too happy to make you kiss his boots in front of your boy."

"Stop it!"

"And a son…who sits alone in his hovel, wondering why Daddy couldn't let him fight in the war and had to turn himself into the town monster."

"I said that's enough!" he roared.

Heat and light violently exploded from the palm of his hand, and he stared in wonder as the ball of fire that hovered there, blazing and hot. It didn't burn his skin, but he could feel the radiation, the power behind it as it shimmered. It rose several inches above his skin, then fell back to where it was, as if it was bouncing or breathing. It was alive. All the things that had ever bothered him, that ever made him angry, they were there, contained in one little ball on his palm and if the books he'd read were right…

He reared his hand back and the ball followed, but when he snapped his shoulder forward with force the ball took off across the room and landed in the corner. Instantly it erupted in flames that caught on to the cabinet he stored his wool. Before he realized what had happened, it burned hot and out of control.

"Stop it!" Zoso screamed.

Stop it! Stop it? He stared open-mouthed at the growing fire he'd kindled! How was he supposed to stop it! The books had told him that! How could he have been so foolish? So stupid! He should have dropped it in the fireplace!

"Should have, but you didn't! Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do what you know how to do!" Zoso yelled in his ear.

What he knew how to do? Water! He needed water from the well, but that was over a mile away by the time he was back his aunts' house would be to the ground and magic couldn't restore what had been destroyed! People would come, if the fire caught on to the thatched roof people would see the flames for miles, they'd come running, he'd be exposed, they'd know he was working on something! And how was he to rescue the Chronicles.

"You are a Dark One!" Zoso hissed, his grotesque teeth bared in anger. You don't need water you just need to use your head!

Use his head. Right. He was clever, and curious, and hard-working, and patient. But now he only needed clever. He only needed what he knew how to do.

He waved his hand, and the flames were instantly frozen where they lapped at the wall, eagerly jumping to the roof. Water. He needed water, but he didn't need to run to the well. He needed the knowledge in his head and the bucket he had by the door. He removed the gourd from it and focused. He focused harder than he ever had on anything, working to keep the flames from jumping back to life as he forced the water to rise, up and out of the bucket. It sloshed in mid-air without its constraints, and he searched his mind, recalling a spell to expand matter. Slowly it worked, the small bucket of water shifted and waved within its confines and grew to two buckets, then three, then four and continued until he had to step back or else it would overtake him. He was sweating, his heart was pounding, and somewhere in there he felt an overwhelming urge to take a nap, but he couldn't let himself. Instead, he pushed his hand at the bubble and watched as it obeyed his silent command and tumbled in a great wave toward the frozen flames which sparked to life again at the change but instantly hissed and fizzled as water met fire and steam rose.

And that was that. One moment he'd ben staring at the fire and the next the danger was gone. The cabinet was black and badly burned. He'd have to get rid of it. But the house was spared.

He'd done it. Pride roared up inside of him all over again. He'd done this. With his magic, he'd actually-

In the back of his head, he suddenly felt something tugging at him. It was a feeling he hadn't had before, instantly distracting him from the mess he now had in front of him. It was like a string on the back of his neck, tickling, pulling, urging him up and away.

"That's a summoning," Zoso muttered, looking at the air behind him as if he could see the string.

A summoning. he knew what that meant, what it was, but...

"But the dagger is here; it's safe."

"There is more than one way to summon the Dark One, saying the name of the Dark One three times is the most common, but this is too weak to be that."

"Who would know my name?"

Finally, Zoso looked at him. "You should go. It might be fun!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a filler chapter, but a chapter I'm hoping you'll like all the same. I really enjoyed getting to write about him learning how to use magic. I think it's because it's the altering of his personality in addition to these new skills. Rumple as the Dark One was so different from Spinner!Rumple and I enjoyed getting to have moments where I was writing both at the same time. I feel like, in this chapter, we see Dark One!Rumple in the beginning when he's attempting fire but telling Zoso essentially to bugger off, but then you get Spinner!Rumple again when the house catches on fire. That little moment of needed to be reminded that he's the Dark One and has magic and then putting it all together as he figures out what he can do was important to me.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter! I was so happy to see such a great response! I hope you'll continue to enjoy these chapters as there's a lot of magical learning continuing to come at you! Peace and Happy Reading!


	31. The Art of Dealmaking

Obeying a summons was not difficult. In fact, it was very similar to what he'd experience when the dagger had summoned him only this time he was making the conscious choice to surrender to the will of another and let the magic take him away.

To a castle.

He'd only ever been in a castle one time in his life, and that was when the roof was burning and falling in around him, but looking around the room he'd arrived in left him little doubt that he was inside a castle. The stone walls, the fireplace, the tapestries draped over the wall, and the long table…apparently castles could be quite elegant when they weren't on fire. And strong. Those walls would keep more than the cold out. And this room, it looked like a dining room of some kind, the table had chairs for at least two dozen. If this was just the dining room, he could only imagine the rest of the place. What would he give for his son to call a place like this home, to wear a crown, to be as rich as-

His eyes roved until he found a man on the other side of the room. He stood behind a pedestal upon which a book rested. He could feel something coming off the book, and from the area around the King. It was magic. Not strong magic, like the dagger, just ordinary. He was surprised he could have musted the magic necessary to summon him from across the land with something so insignificant.

"Dark One," he stated. All at once, the King forced his chin up, and he pushed his shoulders as he stepped out from behind the pedestal. He was trying to create an air of confidence and power, something he supposed royalty should have…but he failed. It didn't take much for him to focus his magic enough to hear the man's heartbeat was racing beneath those fancy clothes of his. He was terrified. And something about that made him break into a smile. Kings were powerful. But if this King was frightened of him, then that meant he knew that he was more powerful. He was more powerful than a King. Excellent.

"I am King Lyle, Master of the House of Slovia, Unopposed Sovereign of the Kingdom of Targarian, Commander and Chief of thousands of soldiers, and…and…father to…to a…to a beautiful daughter."

He lifted his eyebrows at the words, curios as to why the last bit had come out so choked he was nearly crying.

"Well, he did all right until that last little bit there," he muttered to Zoso. "Quite the impressive resume!" Zoso agreed.

He would have put the father part first, if he was honest.

Zoso chuckled but the King looked around the room, to the place where Zoso was standing. "Who's that!" the King demanded. "Who are you talking to?"

"No one can see me except for you!" Zoso hissed. Right…sometimes he forgot that.

"That's none of your concern…behold, you have the pleasure of meeting Rumpelstiltskin!" he announced, rolling his "r" and bowing, mocking the King and his fancy name and titles. "Spinner of Gold, Master of Magic…Dark One Extraordinare…" he glanced up at the man who had taken a few steps back at his overly grand gestures. He didn't even try to project confidence this time. It was all fear. He stood there silent, looking him over with uncertainty. What was he debating, he wondered. What was he thinking in that head of his?

"Never mind that now!" Zoso shouted at him. "The Dark One can be summoned by dagger and name, figure out how he has managed! Protect yourself! You can't have people beating down that door! Think of your son."

Yes. He was right. How had he managed this feat of weak magic?

"How is it you've come to call me here?"

The King swallowed and his eyes welled up with tears once more. "It's about…it's about my daughter…she…she's…"

"Not 'why'!" Zoso whined in boredom.

"I didn't ask for 'why'!" he snapped back at the King who jumped another step away. "I asked for 'how'. How did you call me to you?"

The King's eyes darted to the book over his shoulder, but he never turned his head. Rumple had the distinct feeling that he was too scared to so much as turn that on him. He was a King, and a good warrior according to his station. He noticed how his hand continuously hovered over his sword. Now really…that was amusing.

"It was a spell, a summoning for the Dark One. Ancient but…obviously effective."

"How…convenient." Ancient enough, the pages of that book were yellow and practically rotting, but he felt the nerves in his body begin to fire at the knowledge that it existed in the first place. Something in him didn't like that.

"Protect yourself!" Zoso growled. "Anything that gets close to you gets close to your son. Is that what you want? For them to find your son? For them to use him against you!"

With a flick of his wrist, he watched as the pages of the book exploded into a tower of flames which quickly burned the book into black ash.

"Are you crazy?!" the King shrieked running to the corner and fetching a pail of water. He poured it over the pedestal extinguishing the blaze, but Rumpelstiltskin smiled. The spell was gone. "Do you know how old that book was?! Why would you do that?"

"Well, I'm already here! You've no need to summon me again!"

"Yes, but-"

"Now you may tell me for what purpose you have called me to you."

The King stared at him over the top of the smoldering pedestal. Not only did his racing heart and wide eyes betray him, but now his gaping mouth presented a look of stunned disbelief. This poor fellow had no idea what he'd gotten himself into. But he believed he had. He wouldn't have summoned him unless he thought he knew. And it was late, Bae would be waking up soon.

"Quickly now! Haven't got all day and once I'm gone I might never come back!"

"It's my daughter!" he finally screeched as his voice cracked. "She's…she's dead!" he declared with a choke to his voice.

He knew that he couldn't see his companion, but he looked over at Zoso anyway. The former Dark One shook his head. "We can do nothing for the dead. Tell him to mourn like everyone else and let's get back."

He should do that. He wanted to do that. But the father in him couldn't be cruel that easily. "I don't have the power to summon the dead."

"No! No, it's not that!" the King breathed moving away from the pedestal and practically running to the dinning table. It was only now that he could see it was filled with open books. "This has happened before! Another King with a daughter, she killed herself, and someone cast a spell…" the King had to pause, his face contorted so that all his teeth were visible for a moment as he fought to get a hold of his emotions. He hadn't mentioned when, but if he had to guess, his daughter had died recently. "It's called the Spell of Shattered Sight. It was cast so that the Kingdom would feel the King's pain, well that's what I want! They never excepted her! They never accepted who she was or who she loved and now she's gone! And I want them to feel all the pain that I feel! I want them to know what it's like!"

"No!" Zoso cried as he took the book from the King. "The Spell of Shattered Sight was created and cast long ago! It's a nightmare, time-consuming, and there is no benefit to it for us. Even the first time it was cast, the moment he speaks of, it was done incorrectly. We've vowed never to do it again."

Understood.

"This spell…the time you speak of…it failed. I won't help you."

"Please! Please! I'll give you money, jewels, anything you desire, just cast the spell! It won't fail, not if a Dark One casts it!"

Anything. He'd get anything if he cast it? His eyes looked longingly around the room they were in. The richness of it. The splendor. The privacy. The space!

"That spell is too advanced for you now, Dark One or not," Zoso argued fervently. "You are still coming into your abilities. And there is nothing in it for you. No notoriety, no fame, no fortune, no way into Merlin's Tower. Leave him to his grief!"

"I can't."

"Please, if you don't I'll find someone else! Please! Help me! Free me!"

Zoso didn't want him to, but he felt a compulsion, something in his soul had stirred at the offer of "anything". He wanted to make a deal. He needed it like he had needed his cane when he was a man. But he also knew Zoso was right. He couldn't cast the Spell of Shattered Sight. If he could have, in that moment, he would have. But Zoso was right, it did take too much time and it was too advanced for him at the moment, all the voices all told him that easily. However, there was another voice, one that he imagined had a sneer and hungry eyes as he looked over the situation and told him to be smart.

The King was crying now. As he'd looked over the book, the King had fallen to his knees and melted into the floor, he was openly weeping on the rug. He knew the love of a parent. He knew there was no stopping him. He could tell him he wasn't going to do this spell, but the King wouldn't stop. He'd find someone to do this spell and then what?

 _"Ask yourself how you can benefit from his mistakes," t_ he voice with a sneer pointed out.

How he could benefit? Looking around this castle…he had an idea, especially if the voices were right and in his grief, the fool was bound to destroy his Kingdom in the process. And anyone who felt this strongly over his daughter, a single human, was bound to feel even worse about many humans, even if they'd caused him grief. With the image of the golden spinning wheel in the back of his mind he knelt down next to the broken, crying form of the King. He did have an idea, one he'd gotten from a very clever former Dark One.

"If this spell is what you wish, I'll not stop you. Do as you desire, find another willing to cast it and bear the blood it will bring. It won't be me. Instead, I'll make another deal with you."

The King stopped blubbering long enough to look up at him, his eyes and cheeks red as a toddler whining about a cookie.

"Another deal?" he questioned wiping his nose. He fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was more child than king in this moment.

"When your plan backfires, when your Spell of Shattered Sight fails you, you'll summon me. You'll call out my name three times, and I'll come, and I'll take away your heartache."

He could hardly believe the words he'd said, hardly believe the images in his head. He knew loopholes better than anyone thanks to his father, and he knew what he was hoping the man would think he would do all the while knowing what he was planning to do. Could he really do such a thing?

The King shook his head. "It won't fail."

"Well then I guess you have nothing to lose!" he chirruped in a voice that reminded him of his father's. _That's it!_ The sneering voice urged in his head. _Force him to take it whether he knows it or not! Get him into a corner! Now take what you desire carefully._ "But if you summon me…nothing is free…"

"What would you want in return?" the King questioned, the shadows in his eyes turning once more from grief to fear. They were nearly nose to nose with each other.

"I want…whatever I want."

"Gold? Jewels? Women?"

He let out a loud giggle at that suggestion. "Do I seem the kind of man to need those things?!"

The man suddenly knit his brows together, and his frown turned into a sneer. "I don't know what kind of beast you are, but a man you are not!" Quickly he pushed himself off the floor, and drew his sword, pointing it at his chest.

Zoso chuckled. "Wrong blade, your Highness."

"I don't need your deal! And if you won't help me then our business is concluded! Get out of my home."

"Very well, very well," he muttered rolling his eyes. The sword didn't scare him. Why should it? "But my offer stands!" he declared batting the blade away. "When your precious curse fails to relieve the pain from your precious princess, simply call out my name three times!" he shouted holding up three fingers. "And I shall come!"

"I won't."

He smiled, right along with the sneering voice in his head before speaking aloud both their thoughts. "We'll see about that…"

And suddenly, as he turned to walk away from the King and reappeared in his aunt's home again, he realized that Nimue was right. He did have something that few other Dark One's possessed. Patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this chapter because I felt like it was really the first time we get to see the Rumpelstiltskin we know from the Enchanted Forest. And yes, he's not there entirely and Zoso is guiding him, and it does feel a bit like he's got his training wheel on, but this was a fun chapter that gave me shivers because it felt like he was stepping into those shoes. He's becoming a showman, a good deal maker, a smart deal maker, even! He's using voices, some humor, some malice, and he becomes intimidating at this moment. Oh! This was just so fun to write!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments! Up next another chapter that continues Rumple onto this journey. It should be fairly familiar but don't worry, though it serves as an introduction, we're not moving on to the next section/episode just yet. We will get there soon enough though! Peace and Happy Reading!


	32. The Virtue of Patience

Something had changed him that day at the castle. He'd never really made a deal like that before. Little things with Bae, promises for his happiness and of course, his marriage vows to Milah might count but that…that had been different! And it had felt...amazing!

Deal-making was addictive! It was a rush! A high that he found he adored more than he ever thought he would! It was a gamble every time, a game, trying to figure out how to give a person what they asked for and still walk away from the transaction as the winner!

Admittedly, he was still waiting to see if the deal with the King would be as profitable as he hoped it would be, but in the meantime, he'd taken to making deals whenever he could. It helped him become better at magic, pushed him to find solutions to problems. People weren't as alone as they thought they were in the world. Magic was a powerful tool that could be used to solve many problems. And deal-making was a tool that could not only make his life more comfortable, but better.

Slowly, their hovel started to fill with good things. Their old wooden bowls and plates were replaced with porcelain, and their wooden utensils were finally silver. Where thin and scratchy blankets and sheets used to adorn their beds now they were made of the richest fabrics. They kept Bae warm on cold nights so he could sleep and as for him…well, at least it looked nice. He'd focused so hard at first on the things he needed that the first time he made a deal for something frivolous he let out a giggle when he set the glass vase upon the shelf. They'd never had flowers in the house before; personally he didn't see any reason to start now, but it was the meaning behind it that thrilled him. To pine after something he didn't need meant that he and Bae had everything they could ever need. Except maybe the perfect house to put it in. But he was hopeful that was coming.

Bae hated the changes of course. He'd managed to hide his nighttime wanderings for a long while, but the replacing of various goods throughout the house couldn't be hidden. He thought Bae would be happy about it all, to not have to worry about getting splinters in his food or cold at night or have to play with makeshift toys, but he wasn't. With each new change he grew moody and unhappy. He asked, always asked, where he had gotten such things, and the first time around he was so excited by the interest he took that he told him, he explained what he'd been doing and how he'd been doing it. He showed him some of his magic, the golden thread, the fire he could hold in the palm of his hand…

Baelfire had run out the door with tears in his eyes. He tried to catch him. He called out after him and made it all the way to the door before he was stopped by the gaze of two women across the way. The people were uncomfortable with him around. The only thing that stopped them from attacking him or going after Baelfire was the friendliness with which he tried to approach them. So he hadn't gone after Baelfire. Instead he'd smiled and waved at the women and awkwardly shouted something about teenagers before they picked up their baskets and hurried back into the house, leaving half their laundry still on the line.

He thought he was invincible, he thought he was protected. But in the time that followed, he'd learned a sad truth. He'd made a fatal mistake that there was really no fixing in his deal-making. He raged and screamed at Zoso for not doing his job, for not guiding him better against it. But the entity only chuckled and explained "sometimes the most valuable lessons are those we teach ourselves, Rumpelstiltskin." And a valuable lesson indeed. In learning to make his deals he'd made the mistake of carrying out too many transactions too close to home, and the result was that soon it wasn't just Baelfire who knew about his habit, but the entire town as well.

Rumors flew. Soon people started to talk of his deals, and he was amazed at just how quickly the truth of them could be twisted into stories. He swore that sometimes by the time he walked from one end of the street to the other not only did everyone know, but the story had grown tenfold, so that what started as a simple transaction, a vase for a simple sleeping draft, became a tale of how he'd taken a vase made of ivory and handed down through twelve generations all because a woman wanting nothing but sleep couldn't pay for the potion. It was never as bad as they described. Not really. He always kept to his deals, he was always faithful to them and fulfilled them just as he said he would. And when those who he granted wants to discovered those wants were not what they needed, who did they turn to? Who did they blame? The one with scaly skin and odd eyes was an easy target. Trickster, they called him. Thief. For taking payments when he hadn't fulfilled his end of the deal! If only they knew, if only they could truly see…

He hadn't gotten this dagger in his hand from trickery, he'd gotten it teaching a lesson.

Just how much did the Ferrier's Apprentice need his master dead?

It was everything, he'd claimed. With him dead he could take over as the ferrier, he could get a new life, take a wife, start a family, earn a decent wage!

He doubted that. But he'd insisted. He'd given him the poison that killed his master. A month later the boy was the new ferrier and had a prospect for a wife. The only problem? The boy, hadn't shown up to pay him. He wasn't entirely surprised. He was older, but no more than a boy, used to taking orders. He had no idea how to live, how to run a business, how to control his urges. The boy hadn't shown up at first light to pay him for the poison he'd given him, and he knew why. He'd taken his hard-earned money to the pub, gotten drunk, been tossed in one of the rooms upstairs rooms after his pockets were raided for his coin, and then overslept.

What worked in his favor was that he hadn't denied what had happened once he'd caught him, what didn't work in his favor was that when he woke up and discovered he was late, he'd run into the woods to try and hide. But there was no hiding from him.

They'd had a brief conversation about future payments before he'd decided that the poison wasn't worth what he was demanding for him and teaching a lesson would be far more satisfying. He'd put the boy, Rip Van Winkle, in a deep sleep there against the tree, a sleep that would last for one hundred years. When he woke up, he'd be no better than he had been before, with all he knew and loved gone. That was enough.

He'd been about to leave, but then, there was a flash of metal under his cloak that caught his eye. It was a dagger. Small. As if for a child. Or a young boy. When he pulled the dagger free from it's hilt, he realized there were words engraved on it. "To my son, whom I will always love…your Father."

He'd felt a smile pull at his lips before he glanced at the sleeping man again. It was a shame he hadn't noticed it before. This would have covered the poison if only the moron had thought to use it. As it was when he woke, he could count it as a lesson learned. And now, Bae would have a nice gift to wear around his waist. A good dagger like this was the pride of every man.

"Bae!" he smiled as he opened the door and saw his son, sitting there at their new table, with their fine new wares, drawing on paper he'd not had to pay a fortune for like he had with Milah. It was a sight for sore eyes. He'd made a few mistakes in the early days, but looking around his house as at his new collections…he'd done well.

"A present. Something to sharpen your coal with."

He held the dagger out for his son to see. In his mind, he could see him leaping up from the table with a grin on his face, imagining the adventures he could have with his new gift. But the Baelfire before him, not the one that was joyful in his head, didn't move from the place he was occupying himself at. He set the dagger before him on the table and watched as Baelfire took it in his hands and examined it for a moment, then set it back down.

"Where did you get it?" he asked.

"Oh, from a man who no longer needed it."

"You mean taken from a man who couldn't pay you."

"Bae..."

"Pop, I told you, I don't want any more gifts from the people you terrorize!" The dagger made a nice thud as it slid across the table and off the end, falling to the floor as if it was some common coin or speck of dust. Terrorize…that was a harsh word considering the people he helped came to him first. He didn't terrorize anyone, merely tried to teach them the difference between need and want. On occasion, some of them even understood. And if he benefited from their education and lack of understanding, was that really such a bad thing?

No! He knew it wasn't. He'd grown up learning that there were two kinds of people in the world, those who had and those who had not. This curse enabled them to be those who had. The voices agreed with him, cheering on his logic in his ear. But Bae, sulking at the table as his mother once had obviously disagreed. He wasn't sure, truly he wasn't, what he could do to help Bae understand, to get him to accept the life they were leading these days.

"Then what do you want?" he questioned taking a timid step forward. "Tell me, son. What would make you happy?"

 _Yes!_ The voices cried. _Deal! A deal for happiness! That ought to please the boy! It worked once before!_

But Bae launched himself out of one of the new chairs he'd acquired from a woodworker when he'd given the cursed man a tonic that would help his wife conceive. "Leaving this place!" Bae snapped, moving into the other room. It had once been filled with wool and string and yarn and the stench of livestock, but without need for that, it was now covered with his new treasures. His payments. It was much finer than it ever had been. "I'm tired of staying in this hovel all the time!"

"Well…" he sighed as he followed him. Asking his son to stay in the house was a new development. It had only been going on a week or so, ever since he made a deal with a Sentry from a few towns over that hadn't gone as well as he had hoped. "I'll make you pay for this Rumpelstiltskin! You may be beyond pain, but that boy of yours isn't!" His stomach had twisted as he suddenly realized with a new sense of clarity why the voices were always telling him to keep his identity a secret. It wasn't just for his sake, but Baelfire's as well. Lessons. He was teaching lessons, educating many people. But that education always came with a price, just as magic did. The price he paid for their lack of understanding meant that some of them didn't see what he was teaching them. Many, if given a chance, would hurt his boy just to get to him. He wouldn't allow that. He'd returned to the hovel, strengthened the spells around it that kept it protected, including enacting one that formed a protective bubble. And he'd asked Baelfire not to leave without him. He didn't like being cooped up, but he listened. Baelfire was a good boy, always had been. And as for getting him out of this place, he wanted to tell him about the deal he was waiting to conclude that would get them, and their new acquisitions, out of this place. He wanted to tell him about the future that awaited him when the King failed in his attempt at The Spell of Shattered Sight…but he couldn't. It was too soon, and the King hadn't summoned him yet. He didn't want to get the boy's hopes up. And besides, if the plan failed…well, that wouldn't stop them. They were quickly outgrowing this place. If the castle in the mountains fell through…that wouldn't stop him from giving his son what he'd deserved. If he had to build a castle himself, safely away from here, then that was what he'd do.

"That's easy to fix. How about a castle, huh? I could build you a palace so magnificent its shadow would blanket the countryside."

"That's not what I mean," Bae corrected, turning to stare at him. When had he gotten so tall? "I wanna go out, have friends, see the world beyond these four walls. Papa, why can't you just trust me to do that?"

He tried not to look taken aback by his sudden request, but he'd raised him alone for so long that sometimes he forgot he'd had a mother. Now, he sounded exactly like her. Milah had always wanted more too. Adventure, seeing the world…what had it gotten her? A one-way ticket to hell on a pirate ship. He was safe now, the voices told him so all the time, he was immortal, the dangers of the world posed little threat to him in his current state. But Baelfire was an entirely different story.

"I do trust you, Bae. It's...it's others that I can't. You see, I have many enemies beyond that door. And once you leave, any one of them could hurt you." He wouldn't allow Bae to set foot outside in search of adventure and be taken, just as his mother.

"You sure that's the only reason?" Baelfire challenged, pulling away from his grasp. "Maybe what you're really worried about is if I leave, I might never come back."

Leave? Never come back? Where had those ideas come into his head?

"No, no. I-I-I'm worried about your safety," he explained as his heart raced. He genuinely hadn't been worried about that at all! He hadn't thought anything of that, not until now. But Baelfire didn't respond, just strode back over to his seat at the table and sat down before his paper and coal. Baelfire had used him to kill Beowulf so that they wouldn't have to leave this town. Now he was angry because they never left…

He remembered this, how temperamental boys this age could be. He didn't think he ever really had been with his Aunts, but he suddenly found himself wanting very much to apologize if he ever was without knowing it. He hoped this particular phase was short, but the way some of the Dark One's were laughing at him, gave him the feeling that he might be sorely mistaken.

"This is the best place for you. I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you."

"Papa…" Bae sighed, putting the charcoal back down. "The only way you can lose me is if you smoother me yourself."

"Bae-" But Baelfire didn't sit still to listen to him. Instead, he launched himself up and out of the chair again and practically raced over to the ladder.

"I'm going to bed."

"It's only four in the afternoon."

"I'm tired!" he cried before climbing into the loft. The floorboards above creaked under his weight as he imagined Bae settling into the mattress he kept there. He longed to escape himself, to give Baelfire some time to cool off and go to his safe place at his aunts' house. He could spin some gold, work on some of the spells he had brewing at the moment, maybe even just read a few of the more interesting chronicles again. But the truth was, none of those ideas held any kind of interest for him at the moment. What he wanted, more than anything, was how the King's search for the Spell of Shattered Sight was coming. He wanted to know how long it would be before he could claim that castle for himself. Patience was not always easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one scene from the season three episode, but we're not quite into the rest of that episode yet. This is just the introduction to it. We will be there shortly, but for now, we have a little bit more to cover. First, we have to finish off this little section! I hope you'll enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your reviews on the last chapter! This chapter is only an introduction but what's to come is a really important chapter for the future of this fiction and the next! I hope you'll like it! Peace and Happy Reading!


	33. King of His Castle

It was a good thing that his ankle no longer felt pain, because if it could, he was certain he wouldn't have been able to focus on anything beyond the pain. What had started out as a simple evening, was suddenly a complicated evening.

He'd taken himself back to Camelot, at Nimue's urgings, and stared up at the dark tower that Merlin once called home. In his head, Nimue provided all the information that he could ever want. He could see the door opening, the long winding staircase that clung to the sides of the rooms, making it look like an ordinary house: living room, kitchen, study, bedroom. But it was in the bedroom that things changed, that the stairs disappeared, giving the casual observer the sense that the rooms of the tower ended there, and the top of the long tower was simply for show. Nimue had many memories in that room, sitting before the vanity, reading in the chair by the window, two bodies, naked and writhing together in the bed, smiling and kissing, glowing in a way that made him jealous because he'd never known it could be like that. It was no matter. He didn't need that. Because the memory that he was most interested in was the memory of a woman standing there with a dark-skinned man in long robes as he held his hand out, concentrating as magic filled the air. Stairs descended, leading the couple up, up, up to the very top of the tower. To a workroom not unlike the one he kept at his aunts' place. There was a small trundle for the boy apprentice beneath the window, glass baubles, and beakers filled with different ingredients. And there were books. All around there were books. Some written by Merlin himself. One of them containing the solution to Nimue's problem.

He could see it in his mind's eye. But he couldn't get to it. He circled the tower, poked, and prodded, but it didn't take much for him to feel that the protective magic the Apprentice kept over the Tower was strong magic indeed. It was going to take more than a few simple spells to break through that. It might even require the death of the boy that once slept in that workshop.

He would have loved to have spent more time there, coming up with ideas, trying to piece together the mystery of where exactly Merlin's Apprentice was hiding out, but before he could, he'd felt the tug on his soul that he had come to know as a summoning. Not "The Summoning", his dagger was safely sheathed within his boot at the moment. This was the summoning of three names. He was being called. He knew who was doing it and was tempted to ignore her as he considered her case closed. But the curiosity within him couldn't allow it, and after one final glance back at the tower, he closed his eyes and let himself travel to the home of a woman who he had first helped about two months ago when he was first coming into his powers.

When he'd first visited, the house had been still and quiet. Now the noise coming from it made him want to step outside. He couldn't feel pain, but he imagined this would have given anyone a headache. There were at least ten crying babies in the little living room. All squirming, all screaming, and the stench of their soiled diapers was overwhelming.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, waving his hand before his nose in an effort to clean the air. It helped, but it wasn't so much his hand as his magic that did it for him. "That's a powerful odor."

From the corner of the room, sitting on what appeared to be a footstool the young woman he'd dealt with looked up at him. Her fingers were in her hair, her eyes were bloodshot and watery as though she'd been crying. But the second she spied him standing in her house her gaze shifted from hysteria, to anger.

"You…you promised me happiness! You promised I'd be happy!"

She launched herself at him but traveling by magic was something he'd taken well to and with a simple thought he'd reappeared behind her.

"I said no such thing," he corrected. "I promised you'd have what you wanted…a family to replace your own…in exchange for your mother's broch!" It was such an easy transaction it was laughable. The broch had contained several fine Emeralds that he needed for a charm he was working on that would change a man's appearance, he was trying to recreate a charm he'd read about in another land, but so far he'd had no luck. And as for the woman, a simple compulsion spell set around her house meant that every mother within ten miles who didn't want their baby felt compelled to drop it off at her house. It was best for everyone. This way his mother wouldn't get those babies, the mothers wouldn't have to raise them, and this woman who had lost her husband and small daughter to disease would have exactly what she wanted, a family. Or at least, it was exactly what she thought she'd wanted. "Nowhere in our deal did I promise happiness."

And with the Apprentice still out there and the spell around the tower unbroken he didn't have time to listen to the ravings of a parent who hadn't learned that no one or thing could ever replace a child. At least that was what he thought he'd managed to think. The crying in the room made it difficult to think. He tried to leave out the front door, but she followed him.

"No! Please! You can't just leave me here like this, with all these children! It's like living in a shoe!"

He giggled as the image popped into his mind. A shoe, with windows and flower gardens and doors…and a leather that might actually keep the noise in as the wood was doing very little good to stop the crying even outside! Yes…that would do just fine!

"A shoe…now there is a sight worth seeing!" he let out a giggle as he snapped his fingers and watched as the house, once made of wood slowly morphed. The wood darkened until it was a sturdy leather, the base got bigger, longer, as the top floor grew and grew into at least two more. Windows appeared with small planters hanging off of them, and smoke rose from the top where a leg was supposed to be.

The woman gasped and held her hands over her mouth as she looked it over. With her back to him, it was hard to tell what exactly she thought of it, but he was rather proud. He'd never done anything like that before yet with one thought and some magic he'd managed it. It was a bit much to get over, of course, seeing a giant shoe in the middle of the woods. But it was bigger, at least by three times, than the house that she'd had. And for the sake of the children inside, now that she'd learned her lesson, he'd remove the compulsion spell. It wouldn't return the children she had now, but it would keep more from coming to her.

"There, I daresay, you now have a bit more room to roam in the toes!" he giggled again, and she turned to look at him, her face gone white. She was saying something to him, but he didn't hear it because once more he felt the tug of a summoning. And this one demanded all his attention, urgently. It was the summoning he'd been waiting for.

Without listening to the woman he strode off into the woods flicking his wrist so that the compulsion spell was lifted. At his next thought, he finally found himself standing in the great room he'd stood in with the King! And goodness, the damage, the pure destruction that a cursed mirror could do was impressive.

This room had once been glorious and beautiful. Now, the magnificent table was turned on its side, its chairs strewn across the room as though a canon had exploded. The tapestries that had hung from the walls were in shambles, all but one that looked as though it had fallen to the floor. Mirrors were broken along with glass, shards and pieces riddled the floor, chunks of the marble pillars lay on the floor, and the fireplace smoldered, amplifying the chill in the room. But most startling of all was not something that he saw in the room, but rather outside of it. The sky outside the windows-they were black. And they shimmered, but not as lightning did in a storm.

"Mirror dust…he's done it," Zoso muttered beside him, looking wide-eyed and impressed. It took a lot to impress any Dark One. He owed the King a congratulations.

At the thought of the King he realized, for the first time, he wasn't alone in the room. Not only was Zoso there, but there was a man, covered in armor, holding a mace in one hand standing over something near the drapes, at least until he spotted him across the room. His helmet was up, he could see his eyes, wild and crazy as a sneer came over his face. He captivated his attention so that he pulled him away from the curtains and rounded on him, taking giant steps. It was difficult to see his body through the armor, but he could tell he was angry just from the way he was breathing in and out of his mouth. Red in the face, spittle flying, he let out a battle cry and began to dash across the room toward him.

"Stand your ground!" Zoso insisted.

He stayed put, careful not even to move a toe in shock or fear.

"Protect yourself!"

Zoso flung an arm out, his hand forming a "c" as though he was holding a cup, or maybe just a person's throat.

All at once he was alerted to the sound of metal falling to the ground, and the sound of gagging coming from just in front of him. That was when he realized his own arm was held out and he could feel the throat of the stranger choking against the air just as he had with Beowulf. The man scratched and clawed at his throat, discarding his helmet, desperate to remove the non-existent bonds that held him.

"Now…save yourself."

He didn't know where his mind had gone, where his ability to argue or question orders had fled to. And in that moment he didn't care. He jerked his hand to the side, there was a loud crack, like the sound Hordor's neck had made when he broke it and suddenly the man crashed to the floor, undeniably dead.

"Good," Zoso commented.

Good? It felt…great! He thought deal-making was a rush, but he'd forgotten just how good it felt to do that, to kill, to assert dominance over someone who meant to dominate. It felt great to be reminded that he was the greatest power in the room.

In the room…

He was the most powerful person in the room. But he wasn't the only person. The man he'd just killed had been hovering over something, and he was ever more aware with each passing moment of the whimpers that were coming from the place he'd been standing. Slowly, he made his way around the fallen table and scattered chairs and noticed, probably what that man initially had. One of the drapes was swaying. He pulled it aside, yanking it clean out of the hands of the man lying on the ground before him.

The King barely looked like a king. In fact, he hardly looked like a man in this state. His clothes were torn, no gold jewelry or jewels of any kind adorned his body, but around his neck there was a small piece of what looked like a broken gold chain. In his memory, he could see the large sapphire amulet he'd been wearing on their first encounter, it was as though it had been ripped right off his neck. The only thing of value he had on him was a crown, golden and pointed, just as a cliché crown should be. But it had long streaks of something rust colored dripping down from it. One look at the king's hands and he knew it was blood. Someone had tried to take that crown from him, and he'd held on so tight he'd bled. He should have just given it up. Maybe then his face wouldn't have been a bloody bruised mess of pulp.

"Fix it!" the King cried as his body shook there on the ground. He was difficult to understand. Probably had something to do with his missing teeth and a jaw that looked like it wasn't quite in the right place. "Fix it, please. I'll do anything. I'll take the deal. I'll give you whatever you want, just fix it. Fix it, please."

The King blubbered. He dissolved into what looked like very painful tears, if the way he screwed up his face was any indication at least. He, on the other hand, felt a smirk begin to form in the corners of his mouth as that voice in his head, the one he was certain came from the last Dark One to obtain a castle through means such as these, praised him, telling him what a good job he'd done and to look at where patience and foresight had gotten him. A deal for anything. And after the conversation he'd had with Baelfire not long ago, he knew exactly what he wanted.

This.

"Your land," he croaked in a hushed voice that sounded sinister even to him. It was probably because even through the man's pain, he couldn't stop smiling. "Your land, this Kingdom, this castle…all of it, to remove the pain you feel."

The King blinked, but his hesitation lasted barely a second before he tossed the crown in his hand away in one jerking motion and said "Take it!" through clenched teeth. "Take all of it! Just put a stop to this now! Just fix the pain."

The deal was struck. He felt his eyes widen as something inside him took hold of his heart and filled it with a kind of darkness. He could end the pain of this so quickly. He'd never done anything like it before. But that was what Zoso was there for, to guide him.

"One quick motion is all it takes," his mentor whispered. "You just reach in, grab hold, and pull…"

It was already done. Just as Zoso had given the instructions, his body had reacted much as it had when the soldier moved to attack him. He'd felt magic congregate in the palm of his hand then reached forward, into the chest of the pitiful creature before him. He felt something hard, hot, and pounding against his chest and removed it with only a jerk of his elbow. The heart was read, with splotches of black here and there. He could feel the beat of it against his fingers as the King watched him. He knew, he understood this was not his real heart, merely a representation of it, matching his own, beat for beat, sharing every good and evil deed he had ever done. It was beautiful. And a thrill of excitement shot through him as he looked at the King to see what he'd think, to see how he felt about the life he now held in his hand.

He didn't seem surprised as he lay there. He wasn't sure he had the energy to be surprised. But he was surprised by the shrug of indifference the man gave him. "Just do it," he whispered with tears in his eyes.

Zoso laughed.

"Well, if you insist!" he sneered.

He flexed the muscles in his hand. The man cried out as he arched his back and put his bloody hand over his chest.

But then it was done. His body, balanced and propped against something or other, fell to the ground, limp and lifeless.

His pain was gone.

And in Rumpelstiltskin's hand, there was only dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really important chapter. Actually, I think it's just the last little bit that's really important because it's sort of a turning point. We've seen Rumple kill before and yet, if I've done my job right, this should have the sense of a first killing. I think there are two reasons for that. First, I think it's different because this is the first time he's killed by taking a heart. Second, I think it's different because this is the first time he kills emotionlessly. Everyone he's killed so far he's a had a reason for killing; the soldiers for Baelfire and Beowulf at Bae's order. This is the first time he kind of sort of kills an innocent person just because he can. And yes, I was very careful to make this turn brought about by a sort of mercy killing, but I wanted it to be partly unsettling as well. This was difficult because I know Rumple's character and knew it had to start to go in this direction at some point, but it was hard finally finding the right scenario to begin to make that shift. I hope you think it's alright.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you RolfB for your comments and support throughout this fiction. Up next we've got one more chapter in this middle section, there's one more question that needs answered in regard to Rumple getting his castle. I didn't want to give this answer its own chapter, but it just sort of happened that way. After that we'll be moving onto to the Peter Pan chapters. Peace and Happy Reading!


	34. The Curse Undone

It was easy. So much easier than he ever would have thought it would have been. So easy that he couldn't believe he'd ever scoffed at the idea of taking human life, that he'd ever been so cowardly as to fear doing it. This curse…it made him powerful in all the right ways, everything he'd ever hated about himself, the timidness, the lameness, the inability to protect, those traits were gone; hidden behind this curse, a mask. And a good one. One that whispered hints and orders and suggestions to him. It told him now to take the dagger out of his boot and wave it over the body before him. He obeyed. And as he did it, he watched as his clothes disintegrated, his skin dried and shrank, then turned to dust. Soon that was all that was left of the man who had once owned this Kingdom.

Once owned…

Now it was his. His castle. His home. His grounds. His walls. All the Kingdom.

Well…he and Baelfire of course.

Baelfire…

At the thought of his son, a haze he hadn't realized had passed over him cleared. He rose up from the position by the curtains and looked around not with the eyes of the Dark One, but the eyes of a father. He couldn't bring Baelfire here. Not like this, not as it was. But, perhaps, with a bit of magic…

He slipped the dagger back into his boot and cast his eyes over the space around him. With a pull of his hand, the large table that lay on its side righted itself and slid perfectly into the center of the carpet. With the bending of his fingers the chairs jumped to their feet and slid around the table into place. Silly really. They needed no more than two. He'd have to find a place for some of the others. He turned his attention to the fireplace, quickly lit a ball of flame in the palm of his hand and tossed it in, watching the wood burst into flame. He fixed and replaced the broken suit of armor, he healed the mirror, he set the draperies to tie themselves back and then opened the window to let the King's ashes escape.

And that was when another reminder came to him. The storm, the Curse of Shattered Sight, it brewed, still shedding it's poison over the village below and, now that he was looking for it, around him as well. He could see the way the air sparkled with it. But he didn't feel any different, not like he knew he should with such a curse.

"You'll notice that some curses and other dark magic will act differently or not at all on you, being of the Darkness yourself. You could call it an immunity, but it doesn't work for everything," Zoso explained.

"It works on this spell."

"Yes."

"But it won't work for Baelfire?"

"I'm afraid not. If you were to bring him here around that, he'd be cursed the same as all of them."

"And as someone who knows about the dagger."

"It would certainly be enough to put your life at risk."

The Spell of Shattered Sight. Though he'd never studied it, he knew what it was. He knew what it would do to Baelfire, who wasn't particularly thrilled with him at the moment, to begin with. No. He couldn't risk bringing him here yet. Not as long as the storm brewed. He couldn't risk Baelfire stealing his dagger in the dead of night and taking this power because of a curse. He'd never be able to live with himself. He had to break the spell. But how.

His mind, the voices in his head, they worked through it with him as he walked, room to room, righting furniture gone awry, lighting fireplaces, inspecting his new domain. It was impressive. And the wall that safely guarded the grounds would allow Baelfire to go outside and be able to play without fear of his enemies finding him. But as he climbed to the second floor, as he picked out a master bedroom and the one beside it for his son, a room for spinning, a room for storage, which he quickly moved all the extra chairs into, as he burned the pictures of the King and his daughter and any evidence they'd ever lived there, he came only to one conclusion.

He had to find the caster of this curse. Death was his solution. Death would solve the problem. As he watched the sparkling cloud move over the land from the top of one of his towers, he knew it was the best and quickest solution. Nimue had said it herself when they went to look at Camelot! The death of the Apprentice would bring down his magic. If the caster of the curse died, the magic would die with him.

Or her?

A top the tower, the window looked out over the valley, but it also looked into another tower. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move there. But it wasn't the way a man moved. It was feminine. As he'd searched the castle, room to room, he'd also been looking for individuals, for servants or family. He'd found none, at least none that were alive. Bodies he'd found, and turned to ash, first with the help of the dagger, then, as he'd gotten better at it, on his own. This movement was the first indication of a living individual he'd seen. Perhaps the maid was interested in keeping her job.

He thought about himself in that other tower and was there a moment later. He couldn't have guessed it would be what it was, that a King would have something like this space in his castle! It was a workshop. A magical one! Much like the workshop he had set up in his aunts' old house. A cauldron over the fireplace was smoking, there were spell books-dozens, hundreds of them on the shelves that circled him! Oh, his mouth watered at the thought of what they could teach him! He lunged toward one, but as he took a step, he was distracted by the sound of glass beneath his boots. Not glass. As he knelt down to examine it he saw that it was the same substance of glass but much too thin. And one long piece caught his eye as it reflected his own face. It was a mirror. Shards of a mirror. And where there was a mirror, there had to be-

His eyes fell over the ornamental frame that sat by the window, but before he could examine it further he found himself staring instead at the back of a cloaked figure and all at once remembered the reason he'd come up here. He'd found the woman he'd seen.

Her back was to him. If it weren't for the missing pieces of the mirror she would have been gazing straight into it but as it was all she was looking at was the wood that the glass had once rested upon. There was something coming off of that mirror, something invisible that couldn't be seen, only felt. It was a pulse. One that matched his own. Dark Magic.

"I know why you are here."

The voice was small, barely more than a whisper. But it cut through the silence and solitude of this castle, making the words ring in his ears. However, he didn't jump at the sound. He wasn't afraid of her or what she could do. But he was curious. Very curious, indeed.

"There's no one who can know the mind of a Dark One," he refuted gently.

"So that's what you are…" Finally, she turned to face him, and he felt his mouth open in shock and horror at what he saw. Her hood was up because there was not a single hair on her head, not even an eyebrow. The skin on her face was red and twisted and scared. It looked as though the flesh of her scalp had melted down over her left eye, leaving her only with the one on the right. And what an eye it was, brilliant blue. So clear. But the white around it was pink, the skin puffy, and her cheek was wet. When she brought her hands up to pull her hood down, he noted that they were just as raw and red as her head. "You are the reason he pushed me to do this."

It took him a moment to get over the shock of her and remember what they were talking about. What she was talking about and when he figured it out a sensation of excitement rolled over him.

"You cast the curse."

"Because you wouldn't."

No. He shook his head. If she wanted to blame him, that was fine, but he knew how this curse worked. He couldn't have just walked out and found anyone to do it. It had to be someone specific, someone who was angry, very angry, in order to generate this much power. And from the looks of this room…they'd known each other a lot longer than just after the King had first summoned him.

"The Spell of Shattered Sight takes anger, Dearie," he growled at her. "Anger and power. My refusal didn't make you do this."

He watched as what was left on the woman's face contorted. Her chin trembled and wobbled and her one good eye filled with tears. "They called me a witch. I tried to help them all with my herbs and medicines…but it was never enough. Princess Elisa saved me from the pyre and brought me here against all their protests, and her father gave her this tower to see me well again. She loved me. She's the only person who ever loved me, and they destroyed her because of it! I just…I just wanted them to know what it felt like to burn! And her father told me it would make me feel better, make us both feel better." She reached up to wipe a stray tear from her eye before looking back over at him with the one good one. "Elisa's father, the King…he's dead?"

For a moment, he thought to lessen the blow, but couldn't come up with words that would ever take that much punch away. So he nodded. "This castle and the Kingdom belong to me now."

The woman let out a single puff of air that might have been a chuckle of some kind before wiping her eye again. "So that was your price. All this for a castle…" The girl looked around as she bit what was left of her lip. He watched as she moved two steps closer to the window, then sat upon its ledge. "I thought if I could just give them a little taste of the anger I felt they would understand what they'd done. But I never wanted all this."

Before his eyes, he watched as the woman leaned back and let herself fall from the window. Though he'd come determined to kill her and stop the curse, his instinct forced him forward to try and catch her, but she was already nearly to the bottom by the time he looked out the window. A cloud of blue as her cloak clung to her through the force of the air. She hit the ground with a thud that he heard even from the top of the tower and all the breath he had in his lungs escaped him as he looked down upon her twisted and melted body laying at the foot of the tower. That was something else he'd have to clean up before Baelfire arrived.

"Not quite," Zoso commented beside his elbow. "Just watch."

And so he did. He watched the ground, the blue cloak laying around her body, the air shimmering as it had since he'd arrived. More than he'd arrived. That was what Zoso wanted him to see. Not the body. The curse. The air shimmered, then sparkled, then columns began to form, columns of light and dazzle. Columns that wound their way down from the clouds, up from the valley, around the grounds-all of them attached themselves to her, all the mirror dust in the sky, all of the curse! He watched as it sank back into her body, enveloping her in a light that was too bright to watch and made the tower and the air around him feel like it was shaking. It was a pulse; a pulse that he recognized as magic, but not the kind of magic that inhabited his own body. This was Light Magic. It grew and grew, racing faster and harder, and he was reminded of the feelings he had from years ago when Margery would come over while the kids were outside and they'd lie together. It was a different feeling, but in the end, it was still a kind of climax. He shielded his eyes from it and waited, for once it passed, the feeling was gone.

The tower stilled. The air quieted. And when he opened his eyes and looked down from the tower, he saw green grass and nothing more. The air was clear. And out over the castle and all the valley, the sun was shining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I need to apologize or not. When I originally had this chapter prompted it was part of the previous chapter, but it was one of those things that as I wrote and the previous chapter became too long and focused on that first kill, I felt like this needed to be separated from that chapter. At the same time, what does this chapter really do for the over all fiction or even the series? Not a whole lot in my opinion. We see a little bit of history for the castle, we see the reason why some things are in certain places (like why there's only two chairs in the Great Room with a table that could seat dozens), and we see the Spell of Shattered Sight and learn Rumple is immune. It's interesting, but is it important? Questionable. I thought about removing the chapter, but somehow it felt unfair to do that, so I kept it in. Filler chapter? Kinda. Sorta. I'll let you be the judges and if there are some who don't like it and think it shouldn't have been included, then I apologize.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I'm glad you liked the last chapter even if it included death! I'm curious as to what you'll think of this one now that you know it's history. I look forward to reading your opinions and I will meet you in the next chapter for our return to Peter Pan! Peace and Happy Reading!


	35. An Unexpected Turn

He was in a joyful mood. So were the voices. Zoso was so impressed he didn't bother him as he finished cleaning up the mess in the castle and claimed that crown the King had as his own, but not for himself. The crown was for a better head than his own. He'd give it to Baelfire. Instead of voices, he had grand thoughts and pictures in his head of what would happen when Bae saw that crown. And even more magnificent ideas for when he saw the castle itself! He wanted to go outside? To have adventures? He could only dream of his reaction when he saw the land that he now ruled over, the adventures he'd have roaming the halls of the castle! It was perfect.

Cleaning it had been no easy task. The castle, as well as its grounds, were extensive and it had taken more time than he'd thought, but by the time he left he was confident that he'd taken care of every body that had been left behind, every trace of the family and staff that had run it, and found a room for both himself and Baelfire. Bedrooms! For the first time in their lives, they'd both have real bedrooms!

"I was thinking…" he proclaimed coming into their hovel with the King's crown hidden behind his back. "Only a king should live in a castle. So why don't you try this on for size?!"

But the moment he pulled the golden beauty into the light, he realized that the hovel was quiet. It was lighter. He felt none of the weight that he'd felt over the last few weeks that he'd asked Bae to stay here. None of the anger. None of the sorrow.

"Bae?" he questioned glancing around. No one at the kitchen table, no one by the wheel. There were no creaks and groans from the loft above, no snores or breathing to suggest his son was there. He'd made this house with his own two hands, he knew the sounds it made when it was empty. And it was now. He searched himself, searched his magic and memories of the past few hours, but he'd felt nothing that suggested any of the protection spells around the hovel had gone off which meant…Bae had left on his own. He felt a twinge of pain in his chest, an aching he'd only felt when he was married to Milah and she left night after night for the tavern. Gone. Left him. Bae had threatened it before, but he never thought…things hadn't been that bad, had they? That Baelfire would really run away?

"Tis the curse of the Dark One," Zoso growled. "Too often, no one else can see what you can."

The Curse. The Curse had done this? Saved Bae and driven him away all at once?

"Don't worry too much for the boy. He'll return when he realizes how much he still needs his father to protect him."

Yes. That was why he'd taken the Curse on. To protect Baelfire, to save him. That was why this happened! It wasn't the Curse, it was because he'd tried to protect him, because he'd kept him inside these last few weeks after the threat made by the Sentry! The Sentry-

Panic made its way through him once more as he cast the crown onto the table! The Sentry was out there! Bae was no longer safe, if he ran into him-

He was out the door in a flash! The Sentry hadn't set foot on his property, not only would he never have been able to, but he would have felt it if he tried. But now that Bae was beyond the property, beyond the protection of the spell, the Sentry could get to him. But how was he to get to him. He couldn't remember the Sentry's name, let alone his face! And they'd met in the woods, at night. He'd taken him for a Gypsy at first! How was he to find someone he couldn't remember? He sneered at his memory, it had betrayed him, but this curse, this beautiful blessing had not! Limits no longer existed with him because of this Curse.

He was at his Aunt's house in the blink of an eye, and for this, he didn't need to open a potion book. Though he'd never made it before, he knew exactly what he was doing, the meaning behind each of the ingredients he added to a bowl, the purpose behind them, the proper amount of swirling and stirring. The magic was calming, predictable, unchanging, and ever the same. There was nothing to be disappointed in with magic. For the moment he added the concoction to a bit of dirt and held the muddy substance to his nose to sniff, he remembered. He remembered the scene from a couple of weeks ago perfectly. Not just the night and the deal, but he remembered the man. He focused on him. He memorized him, from the top of his ugly brown hat to the bottom of his muddy brown shoes. The memory was clear. And when he came out of it and wiped his hands, he pictured the man in his mind's eye perfectly, and the next moment he knew, he was there.

Hamelin.

He recognized it in the daylight. The man wasn't before him, but he heard him, he heard the voice that he'd heard in his memory and smiled. There would be no running now.

"You think you can hide him from me?" he questioned loudly as he rounded the corner, interrupting whatever the Sentry had been saying and seeing that he was gathered before a large group of people; a group that quickly scattered away from him, some of them gasping in shock and surprise and even fear, all for good reason. He recognized several of the couples. He hadn't realized just how much dealing he'd been doing until he had so many of his customers standing before him.

"Where is he? Where's my son?!" he demanded.

"He's not here, Dark One. I swear!"

"Lies!" Zoso hissed. "He knows! Of course, he knows! Where else would Baelfire be?!"

"Don't lie to me!" he screamed, taking immense pleasure in the Sentry's fear. He was squirming, quaking in his boots at the thought of him. He was powerful, even more powerful than the Sentry and they both knew it. He liked that knowledge. "Magic has led me to this rathole of a town! His trail ends here, in Hamelin. I know you're hiding him from me."

"No. No, we're not," the Sentry stressed hoping off the crates he'd been standing on to make him appear taller! "Many of our children went missing last night, lured from their beds by some unholy music."

He felt a chill run through his body. Children gone missing in the night? Unholy music? That all sounded like Dark Magic. Very Dark Magic.

"There are few examples in this realm of magic darker than your own!" Zoso cried in his ear.

Well, of course, he knew that! He'd been working on developing all this for too long not to know that! But it made little sense to him why Baelfire would run from his Dark Magic and into the arms of more. Into the arms of music?

"What kind of music?" he demanded.

"From the Piper. Only the children could hear it. Some of them tried telling their parents, but no one believed them. They were sent back to bed. And this morning, they were gone." It was more than a chill that ran through his body. He would have sworn that his blood turned to ice. That was Dark Magic, but the question was how purposeful was it? The sword that sat in his home from Beowulf was proof that Dark Magic didn't just root itself in people but objects. The Pipe that played this music certainly contained dark magic, but was the mysterious piper aware of the magic he possessed?

"And who was playing it?"

"No one saw his face, only a figure hidden by a pied cloak of multicolor patches, leading the children from their homes and into the forest. Don't you see?" the Sentry went on. "It...it has to be the same man that has taken your son."

He searched the man's eyes for a hint of deception. The voices whispered in his ear that it sounded like a trap, that this man was angry and setting him up for something he wasn't prepared for.

 _Turn around, go home!_ they chanted at him; shouted at him!

But he couldn't.

Trap or not his son was still missing. If it was a trap then he'd play along, and he'd find Baelfire, and kill them all for taking his boy. If it truly was a Piper in a pied cloak, well…

"Then whoever this Pied Piper is, he's about to play his last note!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the 3x04 chapters! Are we all ready to see Peter Pan again? Does that need a spoiler alert? I think we're all on the same page. I do hope you are taking note, throughout all of these just how his magic is growing. From where he started so long ago, using some of his Aunts' spellbooks to the point now that he just goes and is able to concoct the potion he needs with barely a thought. It was fun trying to find that nice easy progress from amateur to expert.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I'm glad that you liked it! I'm glad it wasn't a useless chapter at the end of the day but that you were able to glean some importance out of it. I hope you'll like these chapters coming up. The Neverland stuff wasn't my favorite but I found that I liked writing these chapters all the same. They were very important in Rumple's development and to the relationship he shares with his son. That's always a joy to write! Peace and Happy Reading!


	36. The Waiting Game

Patience was a virtue and he had it. Patience was a virtue and he had it. Patience was a virtue and he had it.

Over and over again, he had repeated that single truth to himself for the last few days. Patience was a virtue, and he had it every night that Baelfire wasn't at home safe in his bed. Patience was a virtue, and he had it every morning when the sun came up, and another town reported more boys missing. Patience was a virtue, and he had it as he followed the trail of missing boys from village after village in Hamlin, putting the mystery together, trying to pinpoint where the music would strike next. Patience was a virtue, and he had it when a woman saw him in the town searching out information, and he retreated to the shadows, watching. Patience was a virtue, and he had it as he watched people from the rest of Hamlin warn the last of the towns what had happened the night before and they didn't listen or laughed, choosing to believe those boys had simply run away and theirs never would.

The last town…

Patience was a virtue, and he had it, but it was beginning to drain him. Four days and Baelfire was still nowhere to be seen and the questions grated against him day in and day out as he searched. Did he have food? Water? Was he being held prisoner? Was he safe? Rested? Was he trying to escape? Was he crying out his name? Why hadn't he thought to tell Bae to summon him by calling his name three times?!

Or what if he was? What if Bae was calling out his name, what if Baelfire had said it three times already, but the magic wasn't working? Worrying, it began to seem, was what the night time was for.

The town of Hamelin was made up of five smaller villages, and each night he had picked one of them and waited, patiently, of course. But come the morning he'd find he'd picked wrong and hear the news that the Pied Piper had struck in one of the other villages.

Clues had been minimal. There was no feeling of Dark Magic lingering in the towns, but there were plenty of young boys still wandering around in town that day. Still, adults never seemed to hear the music that was playing, nor women. It was only boys. But, if the Sentry's story was true, hadn't drawn them all. That left him with one option. He had to wait. Patiently.

Tonight was the night. Tonight he was at the last of the villages in Hamlin. If the Piper had gotten away with it in all the others, he had no reason to believe he wouldn't come to this one on this night and finish the job. He'd watched from the shadows all day as people from the other villages arrived, knocking on doors telling parents what had happened to their children and to keep their boys safe. And he watched as history repeated itself and they laughed or argued. Their boys were fine, safe and happy here. They would never leave to the imaginary music like theirs had. And so he prepared for his last night, the night he would get his son back.

He was a smart well-trained soldier who knew better than to simply sit along the street and watch, lest the Piper spot him as he played his pipe. So he found a roof top, crouched down and waited. And then he asked the same question he'd asked every night.

"Have you ever heard of magic like this? Any of you?" he asked of Zoso, who sat next to him, his eyes scanning the streets below in tandem with his own.

"Magic appears in many ways; one spell doesn't always look the same when different people do it."

"Have you heard of magic like this before?!" he questioned again with gritted teeth. Zoso had used that answer every night. He was a patient man, but he was growing weary with the same old answer.

"No one has any answers for you. At least no one that is talking. Search your own mind, Rumpelstiltskin…you'll hear them."

He was right. He was always right. The voices were always with him.

As they sat there, waiting and watching, the voices in his head were silent, on this matter at least. The conversations he heard revolved around not the person, but the magic. For the last four nights, they'd been arguing, trying to figure out the magic they didn't understand. From the deep recesses of his mind, he could hear a male voice think of a spell that would enchant any musical instrument to play music on command. A female voice commented that if that were the spell in use then the music would be heard by all and not just children. In her opinion a potion had been added to an individual's ears so that they heard only what the potion maker wanted them to. That was silly, a frail voice added. Someone hadn't gone around deafening all the boys in the village, it was an enchantment of some kind most likely on the instrument. Then why did only the boys hear it?! It was a potion! It was an enchantment!

On and on they rambled and squabbled with one another, a dull roar he only heard when he wanted to. The only good news was getting used to tuning them out when he wanted to, but the better news was that he was getting better at picking up the helpful things they said and committing them to memory. The only helpful thing they had to say about the Piper? It was Dark Magic. None of them questioned that. They all agreed.

But they also all agreed that his own magic was stronger than the Piper's. It would be Dark Magic against Dark Magic. And so, instead of shutting the voices out, he clung to them, he listened, and learned, and prayed he was well enough prepared for…

"Do you hear that?" Zoso suddenly hissed in his ear.

Yes. Yes, he did hear that. It was a sound that came not from his mind or the quiet streets but rather from all around. And he didn't understand it. The sun was down, the night was dark, he'd stayed up on that rooftop for longer than he knew a person could sit! He'd been waiting for a sighting of a Piper in a patched cloak. He'd been waiting for boys and a trail to follow, but suddenly the air was filled with music. It was faint, but clear, and he stared off in the direction it came from utterly baffled as it drew no closer or louder. There was no Piper below him, it seemed to come from the air itself but…

At first he thought that it couldn't possibly be the piper. The Sentry had said adults hadn't heard the music. But then, maybe because he was cursed with Dark Magic, he could? He figured he'd know soon enough. It was loud, and it was the middle of the night. If it wasn't the piper then any minute now adults would come out, eager to find the offender and silence him so they could get some sleep.

A noise made his head snap in the direction of one of the row homes. Part of him had expected it would be an adult, coming to ask about the noise, but another part of him wasn't shocked to see it was a boy, opening a door. On the streets below he watched as boys in their dressing gowns emerged from their homes. Some quieter that others, some who were tall, others who were young, in a few homes he even heard shouts from parents, and then watched as boys descended from ropes in their windows, not bothering to dress! And not a single adult among them. There wasn't a doubt in his mind as to where they were going or what had called them from their beds. It was the music.

"That will lead you to Baelfire," Zoso commented, as he rose.

Confident the player was nowhere in sight, confident the boys on this street were all ahead of them he dropped down from his place on the roof and began to follow at a distance. Patience was a virtue, a virtue he possessed whether he liked it or not. But for his son, he would exploit that virtue if it led him to the end of the earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a huge fan of this chapter. It was fun to write the bit about the voices but in truth this chapter is filler. It's meant to get us from the previous chapter to the next chapter.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments! I'm interested as to how you'll feel about the rest of the chapters in this section as well as this one. Filler or not I can promise that the other chapters in this section are certainly not filler. Peace and Happy Reading!


	37. Unwanted Reunion

The flute music he heard led the boys out of town. The youngest looked to be about six the oldest maybe sixteen or seventeen. Some of them he recognized from watching in town all day and it struck him as odd that these boys the ones he'd seen selling wares for their parents, milking goats, drawing water, watching after their younger brothers and sisters, even sitting attentively in their classroom suddenly seemed to regress under the influence of the music. During the day they'd been mature and trustworthy young men, now they seemed to be nothing but a choatic group of boys. They marched together, smiling and shoving one another playfully. The older ones picked on the younger ones, but the younger ones didn't seem to pay it any heed, they just picked right back. They weren't acting like themselves which had an odd effect of panic as well as ease on him. If Baelfire was with them, he might have been the abused or the abuser. If he were the abused and was hurt, well then, he'd finally learn how to heal. If he was the abuser…well then, he'd know it was only the music that made him do it.

He followed after them at a distance as they moved out of the town and into the woods. A safe distance. Close enough to watch the boys as they talked and ran ahead, but far enough away to keep his eyes open for any hint of danger; a cloak of patches, a man with a flute, a trail of dark magic that might give him a clue as to what was going on. He saw none of that. Only watched as the buildings around him gave way to forest and the boys grew louder and ever more restless. Longer and longer they walked, farther into the forest until the town was hardly visible at all anymore. Until suddenly the music he heard wasn't in the air around them anymore but came clearly and distinctly from up ahead. In fact, not only were the pipes louder, but he began to hear the faint rhythm of drums and other instruments as well. Then, he heard the first sound that didn't fit. A holler. A noise like a boy encouraging another to do something stupid. It was then that those in front of him, the ones they'd been following picked up their pace and ran on ahead. The ground was vibrating, he could feel the pulses beneath his feet, and there, up ahead…there was a light.

The closer he crept, the clearer the picture became. It was a bonfire. But it wasn't there for the pleasure of giving heat or cooking food around it there were people dancing, playing instruments, roughhousing, just playing! They were the boys! Tons of them! Moving around so quickly he couldn't count them all. Were there just a dozen, or hundreds? It was difficult to tell. They wore masks and let out loud whoops and hollers as they danced before the flames to the music, some doing flips as they jumped up into the air others just kicking their feet together.

They were intimidating. In his old life, he probably would have grown too scared and walked away, reported them to the sentry and come back later. But now he was the Dark One, and they were only children. Whatever this music was, it was no match for his magic, or the love of a father for his son.

"Bae!" he called out, expecting the music to stop and the dancing to cease at such an intrusion. He expected them to behave like children who had been caught by an adult and perhaps even run away, he'd even listened to one of the voices and had a protection spell in his head ready to seal the area off, but the boys did none of that! They just kept dancing!

"Bae!" He watched their faces as they carried on. His son was a good boy. If he was here and his father was calling him, he would come to him! There! "Bae!" It was a boy about Baelfire's height, with brown hair just like his own! A parental anger he'd never had to experience before at being ignored seized up inside of him as he grabbed his son by the collar, dragged him to his feet and looked at the mask he was wearing…but it wasn't him.

He was about Bae's height, but it was easy to see the difference between "about" and "exact" as he stared at the child. He wasn't his son. He released the boy, and began to grab at them, one by one, examining those he could get his hands on to no avail. None of them were Baelfire. And the moment he let them go, they were quick to return to the dance, to shuffle themselves once more as if they truly were unaware of his presence. That was just fine with him. He had eyes only for one person.

The boy with the cloak, the one who was on the other side of the fire pit, the one playing the pipe! He spotted him, and instinct and magic had him focusing in on the pan flute in his hands. That was magic. That was the thing responsible for casting the spell. He could feel it. He was across the blaze faster than he'd ever traveled. He yanked the pipe, one like his father used to play, out of his hands and snapped it in two. He didn't care what kind of magic was within it, he wanted it destroyed.

"Where is my son, Piper?"

"Is that what they're calling me? We both know who I really am," the Piper turned and lifted the hood from his eyes.

Rumpelstiltskin had to take a step back in shock as his blood went cold. He was immortal, and no longer weak but looking at the boy before him, at the face that he'd seen only once but had been etched in his memory ever since, made him feel faint, and sick to his stomach. He looked like a boy, but they both knew he was older than he was.

They both knew who he really was.

His father.

Peter Pan.

The Pied Piper was his father.

"Been a long time, laddie. Glad you could make the show."

He was speaking ordinary words, ones that carried sarcasm and threat that he desperately wanted to respond to, but for a moment he felt eight years old again. Though the boy's face only held traces of the man he'd once been now the authority with which he commanded his power wasn't only that of Dark Magic that practically rolled off of him, it was the authority of a parent. It demanded silence and cowering. It demanded the adult speak. It ordered obedience.

"You surprised to see me, Rumple? I don't blame you. I'm a little surprised myself. Look who's all grown up and become the Dark One! Good for you."

"What are you doing here?" he finally managed to question quietly, his voice barely audible even to him. He hadn't thought of his father for a good long time and for a good reason. He didn't belong in this world and he shouldn't be here now.

"It's lonely in Neverland. The only friends I have are the children who visit in their dreams. But they can't stay. The boys I take back with me will."

He was certain he hadn't been breathing up until that moment. But the mention of taking boys with him…it shook him.

"You're here for my son."

"I am," he answered matter-of-factly. That response wrenched his heart in an entirely different way. He felt jealousy and rage and anger. Though they were usually considered negative feelings, at this moment, they were good. They made him strong. They reminded him that he wasn't a little child cowering from his drunken father anymore or begging for food! He was powerful. And he wasn't about to allow his dastardly bastard of a father take his child, when he hadn't been good enough!

"It's gonna take a lot more than a magic pipe to take my son," he vowed. A magic pipe that was on the ground, snapped in two because his magic was stronger than it. He didn't stand a chance.

"The only thing magic about this pipe is that only certain boys can hear it!" Pan declared. "Boys who feel unloved, boys who feel lost. I guess that's why you can hear it, Rumple. Isn't it?"

So that was how the spell worked. The voices were thrilled.

And yes, perhaps that was why he could hear it, but it was of no thanks to the being before him. He'd had no love when he was around, never knew the feeling of want and need from another person until he had his aunts and then his son! Yes, he could hear the pipe, but only because Pan had taken that one important thing in his life that helped him to feel loved. It wasn't because he hadn't been loved!

"Don't pretend to know me," he snarled breathlessly, taking steps closer, rounding on him, wanting him to feel as small as he once had. "You don't. Not anymore."

"Oh, I think I do. Beneath all that power, you're nothing more than an unloved, lonely, lost boy!" he shouted, rounding on him, playing his game too perfectly. Then, like any distracted child would, he broke into a smile. "Hey, I like the sound of that. That's what I'll call my new group of friends. The Lost Boys. It has a nice ring, don't you think?"

He was asking the question so seriously it was disturbing, too childish for someone he knew should be old and grayer than he was. This child, this boy…he was truly where he'd gotten his cowardice. And he wasn't about to let Baelfire have any part in his games.

"You can call them whatever you like. Baelfire will not be part of it."

"Oh, he's already a part of it," Pan laughed. "The question is, what are you willing to do to get him back?" More games. There would be no deals made with his fa…with Pan. Not ever.

"I'm gonna make you regret ever asking that question."

"Oh, I understand you're upset. Most parents' worst fear is that their child will be taken away from them. But that's not yours, is it, Rumple? No. You're not afraid Baelfire will be taken from you. You're afraid he'll leave. After all, being abandoned is what you're good at, isn't it? Everyone you've ever known has left, haven't they? Like Bae's mother Milah, not to mention your own father. Why should Baelfire be any different?"

He wasn't eight anymore. He wasn't. His father had been a self-centered coward, but Pan was just a selfish child. He…he didn't know him! He didn't know his life. His father's abandonment had been the best thing that ever happened to him! He wasn't going to feel like Pan wanted him too.

"You're wrong."

"Am I?" Pan pounced as his soul worked on recovery. "Well, let's find out, shall we? You ask Baelfire if he wants to come to Neverland with me or stay here with you. If he wants to stay, I'll leave and never return. Deal?"

"Bad deal!"

Zoso came from out of nowhere. A voice in his ear, a man over his shoulder, just as gray-haired as his father should have been and angrier than he'd ever seen him.

"Snap out of this, you fool!" he hissed at him. "This man didn't make you what you are, he doesn't even like you! I made you what you are, we made you what you are, and it wasn't to be a cowering mule! You have a job to do and if Baelfire is the only way to get you to accomplish that job then get him and get out!"

That man, that was the man who had given him everything he'd ever wanted including the ability to overcome his father and whatever pathetic history he'd passed on to him. He wasn't eight anymore. He was the Dark One, and he had a job to do! And one day he was going to destroy the Apprentice, go through Merlin's prophecy's himself and play his role in them if it was the last thing he ever did. He wasn't going to make deals with the likes of Peter Pan!

"I don't have to make any deals with you."

"But why wouldn't you, if you're so sure he'll stay?"

That had nothing to do with it! Nothing! His son wasn't here because he wanted to be with Pan, the pipe had done that. Did they have problems? Of course, every family had problems. Peter Pan hadn't been one of them until now. He'd find his son. He'd present him with their new home. They'd figure it out because he was his father. He wasn't going to leave his boy to Pan or his Shadow.

He turned back to the boys before another word could be said and began searching.

"You don't even recognize him, do you, Rumple?" Pan taunted, he could hear him stalking him with every footfall.

"Well, how could I when he's wearing a mask?" he questioned, playing along as he and Zoso prepared something. His son could be any of these boys, but only one of them shared his blood. Blood called to blood.

"Well, he might be wearing a mask, but that's not the reason." He let Pan talk, let him think he held his attention as he walked among the boys and let his magic stretch out over the group. He let his blood boil and sizzle until it finally created a thin line, a thread that connected him to one dancing, masked boy that he zeroed in on just as he had Pan's flute moments ago.

"Look at him...playing with the boys, out in the world. He's happy, Rumple. That's why you don't recognize him."

He ignored him as he made his way toward his son and pulled the mask off his face.

"Bae."

Baelfire looked him over with wild eyes, all the while he panted, his chest rising and falling from such brisk activity. He looked surprised, confused.

"Baelfire. Are you all right?" Was it magic? He could counter that!

"I'm fine," he snapped, catching his breath. "Why are you here?"

Wasn't that obvious? This was what parents did! He just needed reminding, that was what he'd failed at. In trying to secure a safe home for him, in trying to surprise him, he'd forgotten to show him how much he loved him.

"I know you think I don't care about you, son, but I do. And I'm here to prove it."

"How?" he asked.

"Go ahead, Rumple," Pan urged behind him.

But Zoso was having none of that. "Don't be a fool. Put your hands on the boy and take him before you do something stupid!"

He obeyed.

"Papa!" Baelfire cried, stepping out of his grasp. "What are you doing?!"

What parents did for their children...

"I'm protecting you." With a bit of magic and concentration, Bae disappeared inside a thick fog of magic, gone safe and sound back to the house.

"You're gonna regret not taking my deal, Rumple!" he heard Pan cry only seconds before he followed after his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun writing this chapter. And that sounds awful because context-wise it should have been a really sucky chapter to write. Rumple seeing his father again is a very traumatic experience-and then there's me, writing it with a smile on my face. I enjoyed writing Rumple feeling like a small boy again without actually saying those words and I enjoyed adding Zoso into this chapter, having Rumple reflect on his relationship with him a little and have Zoso and the other Dark Ones make their claim on him in a way his father never did. Throughout this fiction, I really enjoyed being able to add Zoso into the chapters. It gave me an extra character to play with while still keeping things canon and that's an opportunity I've never had before.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments yesterday! Glad to know you enjoyed it! We've got two more chapters that I consider part of this episode, although as I sit here I suppose it's really just one. The chapter after the next one could be seen as an extension of 3x04 but it's nothing that was ever shown. What's that chapter all about? Stay tuned and find out! Peace and Happy Reading!


	38. The Cost of the Manipulated

"Don't touch me! Get away!"

He felt the push and heard the screams even before he felt the floor of their home against his feet. When the smoke finally cleared, he saw Bae, that wild look in his eyes that suggested panic. He didn't realize that he was home!

"It's all right now, Bae. You're safe."

"Safe?!" he questioned back skeptically. It was almost like…it was almost like Baelfire considered him the threat. "I was never in danger. The Piper was my friend!"

That explained it. That spell, whatever that damn enchantment was that Pan had placed on that pipe was responsible for this. For brainwashing his boy, for convincing him anywhere besides home was safe. He and the voices were hopeful that the distance would help, but if it didn't he'd find a cure! Until then, it was the basics. Bae had been out there for a long time, he'd been dancing by the fire all night and maybe several before that, he'd worked up a sweat. He'd need water to rehydrate and food, of course, but most present on his mind would have to be encouraging him to bathe lest he make the house smell. Odd how after everything the first place his mind went to was suddenly understanding the feeling his aunts' had to hold their noses when he was a teenager and returned from a day working in the field; the only difference was that he'd acquired his stench from hard work and Bae from had acquired his own under the influence of Peter Pan.

"He may have wanted you to think that," he urged gently. "But you have to believe me. He would've hurt you."

"Why?" Bae questioned the moment he turned his back to fetch him some water. "Who is he? Another person that you abused with your power?"

He paused for a moment, the idea that he'd been the one to abuse him…Pan probably thought that. If what his aunts had told him in his childhood was true then he'd abused Pan just by existing, by being a shackle around his ankle.

But when he recalled all those nights he'd gone to bed hungry while his father had filled up on drink at the tavern, the nights he'd spent under the stars, sleeping in a makeshift tent because he'd let their roof cave in, the days he'd had to steal from neighbors for food, shelter from the rain under a tree, fend for himself because his father was off gambling away the small fortune they made…if he was the shackle, then he was made of weak iron, indeed. Him? The abuser? Not from where he stood. But Bae…

He'd never known anything about his upbringing, about the wickedness of his grandparents and the last thing he wanted was for him to know that he shared blood with such a creature as Peter Pan. He was nearly a man, his smell was proof of that, but he'd known next to nothing of the cruelties of parents, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"His name is Peter Pan," he half admitted, turning back to look at Bae. "I've known him since I was a boy. Growing up…we were incredibly close." Or so he'd always been led to believe.

"So you're saying he's immortal, too," Bae assumed. The wild look in his eyes and the panic on Bae's face had gone away; now all that remained was disappointment. He didn't realize the magic Pan had. Not until now. He probably didn't even know he'd been placed under a spell! He looked as though his father had just told him his hero was a villain. Well, essentially, he had.

"He wasn't always," he admitted, trying to bolster Bae's hopes just a bit, to make some kind of teachable lesson out of this. "He went to a place called Neverland. He betrayed me, Bae. He can't be trusted."

"What happened?"

He closed his eyes, no more than a drawn-out blink, but in that blink, he'd seen it all over again. He felt the arms of the Monster, the Shadow, lifting him high into the air. He saw the face of his father vanish, become the face of the boy that he'd seen tonight. He heard himself scream and cry for his Papa when the Shadow had gone. And he recalled the tears he'd shed after, in the safe embrace of his Aunts, when he truly understood that he was a shackle Pan had freed himself of. It was awful. But there was no way to communicate just how awful without telling Baelfire the entire story. And that was the last thing he wanted to do. For Baelfire's sake as well as his own.

"Create a mask," Zoso whispered once more in his head. "Hide yourself. Protect yourself. That is how you'll protect your son."

"All that matters is that he fooled me for a long time before I'd finally seen his true nature, and it is darker and more repulsive than you should ever be exposed to!" he called as Bae turned his back on him.

"He can't be any worse than you."

There was a silence that lay between them after that remark. He knew, or at least he'd always assumed he knew, what Bae thought of him, after the Beowulf incident. All magic came with a price, this just seemed to be the price that kept on taking. Or was it more than that? Was it the Ogre Wars? The deals? The magic? No matter what the root of this hatred he possessed, it was all for the same reason!

"I had to protect you, Bae!" he explained. "I didn't have a choice."

Bae immediately turned on his heel and strode over to him, all panic and fear replaced with anger. "Stop lying because I know that you did!" he yelled. "I know about the deal Pan offered you. He said all you had to do was ask me if I wanted to come home."

"He told you?" he whispered in shock. When had he…

Before he'd even gotten there. Suddenly the enormous extent of exactly what happened tonight took over. He'd assumed this had all been a coincidence, that Baelfire had just been caught up in his urge to walk away and Pan had been just as surprised to see him there as he'd been to see Pan was behind it all but…now that he thought of it, he remembered. He knew! Pan knew that Baelfire was his son, that he would come for his boy. Suddenly a name rang out, clear and loud in his head. Milah. Pan had mentioned her when they'd been talking. He shouldn't know Milah's name! He shouldn't even know that she'd left, been taken on a pirate ship, because Bae didn't know that! As far as he knew his mother was dead. That led to only one conclusion. Pan had been watching him. Them.

"He said that way I'd know if you really trusted me, if you really cared."

Really cared…of course he cared. He hadn't made a deal with him because he didn't trust Bae! It had been because of Pan!

"Oh, please, Bae."

"You didn't need to. I would've chosen to come home. I would've chosen you!" he cried.

He felt himself reel back in shock, not from his son's tone, but from his admittance. He didn't know…he hadn't realized…he truly hadn't expected him to agree to return. Pan's deal, he thought he hadn't taken it because it was a bad deal, because his father was a bad person to make bargains with. He hadn't realized until now that was only part of the reason he'd done it.

"If only you asked. Maybe we could've found a way to be a family again."

"We can be," he stated quietly, unaware that they ever weren't a family. "Bae," he took a step closer to his son, but he turned and moved farther away. "Bae!" he cried just as Baelfire opened the door and moved outside. Just as Bae left him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short, I promise, the next chapter is going to be a bit longer and sort of add on to this one. I tried to combine the two, but in the end I felt like this needed it's own chapter.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments. They are, as always appreciated! I wait all day to see what ya'll think of the chapter and I'm always so pleased to hear it had the effect I wanted it to. I know we had a lot of focus for a while on Rumple's magic and the Dark One mythology, but the last chapters are pretty father/son oriented. Even these last few Dark One chapters have a bigger focus on Baelfire and their relationship. Stay tuned! Peace and Happy Reading!


	39. A Parent's Job

Baelfire was gone. He'd left. Really left!

Out the door.

Outside the protective spells.

Gone.

He felt his knees begin to wobble and tremble. Knocking together as he stared, willing Baelfire to come back through the door and throw himself upon him, apologize and tell him how grateful he was for coming after him. He wanted it so much he began to feel a pain in his ankle again.

"You know what you need to do now, don't you Rumpelstiltskin?" Zoso asked as he sat in the next room, unable to take his eyes off the door Baelfire had disappeared through.

He nodded. Yes. Yes, he knew exactly what he had to do. He had to fix this!

"Wrong!" Zoso insisted, suddenly appearing only inches from his face. "You have to be the parent. You have to decide what is right, what is safe! You have to protect your boy whether or not he wants to be protected. Take him to his new home. Protect us. Protect yourself! Pan is only one of many enemies you'll make. By protecting yourself, you will protect your son."

Pan as an enemy. What a strange thought. He'd had a lot of time in his life to think about his father, about Pan. He had a lot of words for that man. Coward. Father. Negligent. Addict. Gambler. Liar. Betrayer. But this was the first time he'd ever associated him with that word: enemy.

Enemy. That was the word. Before he'd been the one who had abandoned him which was an awful thing, but he'd never truly seen it as him doing anything against him until this moment. Enemy. He'd told Baelfire about the deal he was going to offer, he'd plotted to destroy the relationship he had with his son, it was all Pan! All this time, he'd done nothing to his father since he'd become the Dark One and yet he'd still done this for no reason that he could think of! What did that make him other than an enemy?!

Peter Pan, the Shadow, Neverland, Pixie Dust-enemies. Wicked evil things, all of it!

"And more will follow, Rumpelstiltskin," Zoso whispered. "It cannot be helped. Dark Ones, whether princes or paupers, have always attracted anger and hatred. And where there is anger, there is a thirst for retribution. There is no stopping it. The Sentry and Pan are easy to shield him from with proper precautions, but as more come, you won't be able to keep him safe. Protect yourself. Protection what is precious to you. It's your job."

It was his job.

To protect Bae.

To protect the magic within him.

To destroy the Apprentice.

To destroy Light Magic so Bae would no longer see what was in him as a curse.

It was his job.

But if being the Dark One had taught him anything, it was that everything had to be approached with precision. Delicately. He could feel the eagerness of the beings within him, their urgings to find Baelfire and take him to the castle right now, this very second. But when he remembered his son's words…

"I have to make this right," he muttered before shoving his fear and pain aside so he could move outside. He left Zoso behind, but only in spirit. Zoso's knowledge, the magic he'd taught him when he'd worked a spell at Pan's Bonfire, remained. And he used it.

Baelfire wasn't far. Though he couldn't see him, he could feel him, like an invisible string pulling on him, connecting his blood to his son's. The woods. He turned and walked into them, following the pull he felt in his heart and then, finally, with his eyes.

He hadn't gone back to Pan. Thankfully. In fact, Bae had barely made it a quarter of a mile from the hovel before he'd sat down on a fallen log. His back was to him, his figure slouched, now and then he could see a shudder come over him. He might smell like a sweaty working man, but he still cried like a child. It was an awkward age, that much he remembered. He remembered all those times he'd wanted, not his aunts' guidance, but his father's, another man to teach him how to become a man. He had a job to do ad the Dark One could certainly be a help for it, but for is he needed nothing more than the instinct he'd had long before he'd taken the curse on.

"Bae."

On the log, Bae gasped, surprised he wasn't alone.

"Which is precisely the reason he shouldn't be allowed out on his own!" Zoso hissed. He ignored the voice of his teacher and moved forward. Baelfire didn't fight. He didn't run off or move away. As he sat down beside him on the log, the only response he gave was to wipe his eyes and his nose on his dirty sleeve and look off away from him.

He knew what Bae wanted. He wanted freedom. He wanted the ability to be a boy while he still could, to play safely outside without fear of where his next meal would come from, or if the roof would cave in, or if a spell from a magical pipe would enchant him. He needed freedom and peace. And his heart leaped with the realization he could give it to him, but he had to do this right. He had to fix what he'd done wrong. He couldn't set things back to the way they once were, and he didn't want to. Being human again meant being poor and powerless, and he wasn't about to succumb to that again even if he wanted to. But change wasn't always bad. And sometimes it could work out for the better if only Bae could believe in him again.

"I can't make things the way they were before the war, Bae," he finally muttered. "There are things that cannot be undone, and I won't go back to having you live in squalor again."

"We never lived in squalor!" Bae argued.

He felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Good. He'd worked hard to make sure that Baelfire never knew just how poor they were. If he didn't think what they'd had before was nothing, then he'd done well. He'd managed to make something out of nothing before he had magic. Perhaps that was why he was so desperate to see what he could make with it now.

"I know you hate being inside all day, being confined…it's not the way to grow up. I know that. I was your age once, I remember." He glanced over at his son, expecting to get a smirk or a comment, or even a snort out of him, but he offered nothing. He wasn't amused. Not with him, not anymore. But with any luck, he could change that.

"What if I told you I'd found a new home. One that was far away from here, where no one knows us, where no one knows me, not as the Dark One, not as a Spinner, not as a coward."

"You were never a coward, Papa," Baelfire insisted suddenly.

The comment shook whatever he'd been thinking about before from his mind as he pondered that. Not a coward? How was it possible he wasn't a coward? That was all he'd heard ever since he returned from the war.

"I wasn't the best of people Bae."

"No, you were my father. And you were one of the bravest people I knew! I loved our family, but now-"

"But don't you see, with this new home we can have that again, Bae! It'll be you and me again! Away from the threats and curses of this magic. We'll be free!"

"As long as you have this magic, Papa, I don't see how we'll ever be free."

"Bae-"

"Who is Peter Pan?" he demanded suddenly.

Peter Pan again. That name. It left a bad taste in his mouth. But from the look in Bae's eyes, unwavering and persistent, he was beginning to see that Pan's curse went beyond what had happened tonight, beyond the deal that he hadn't taken. Unless he gave him something, he was going to be hearing that name a lot more often than he wanted to.

"He's not the sort to make deals with Bae."

Baelfire sighed and pushed himself off the log. "It's always about deals…"

"This wasn't, Bae!" he cried before he could get more than a few steps. "My aunts…the women who raised me, sought to protect me after his betrayal, just as I want to protect you. He's dangerous."

"How, Papa? How did he betray you? What happened between you?"

And they were back to what he wasn't ready to let Baelfire know. This had nothing to do with the mask Zoso so desperately wanted him to wear and everything to do with keeping Baelfire safe and sane. He was a strong lad, but he didn't need to know the extent of where he came from. At least he didn't now, not this young.

"One day I'll tell you the story," he promised. "One day I'll tell you about him, but for now…" he rose to his feet so that he could stand before his son. "For now, I want to protect you and give you the freedom you desire and yearn for. Come away with me. Just say the word, and we can start fresh Bae. We can be a family again so long as we both choose to."

"What if I say 'no'?" he questioned.

What if he said no? He did his best not to look shocked or surprised by the question, but the truth was that he hadn't considered what he'd do if Baelfire said "no". Put more spells around the property, for one. Protect him against Pan and his Shadow that much was non-negotiable. But as to the rest.

 _"He wants to be a family…remind him of his place in the family,"_ a voice in his head urged. " _You were never one of the bravest men he'd ever known because you were the Dark One, it was always because you were his father. Remind him."_

He didn't know who the male voice belonged to. But in the faced with nothing else to say, he hoped the man was once a father himself, speaking from experience. He hoped he'd been a better father than his own had been.

"Then I'm going to do what I have to do to keep you safe because I'm your father and it's my job. All the magic in the world, all the wool I could ever spin, won't ever change that. You are not the son of a coward or the Dark one or even a spinner. You are my son. And it's my job to do what is best for you as it is your job to learn."

Baelfire stared up at him, his eyes round and big, in the moonlight he could still see the tears shinning in them. They hadn't changed, not once in his fourteen years had his eyes changed. The same eyes that had looked up at him as an infant stared back at him now and he wondered when, if ever, they would change.

"If I go…you'll tell me about Peter Pan?"

Bile rose in his throat. That…monster, it seemed, was just something that would never leave them be. But one day, Bae would understand. One day, he would see that he was right. One day when he was a man himself.

"One day," he promised. "When the time comes, and you are ready, one day I'll tell you about Pan. But for now, I'm asking you to choose our family and put this place behind us. I am asking you because I don't want to tell you…please."

Baelfire let out a long sigh as he looked around the forest. It was like he was searching for something, anything else they might be able to talk about. But finally, he glanced back up at him.

"I suppose I could give it a try…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two short chapters back to back, but like I said, given their content, I didn't feel like I could possibly combine them since they are both so different. That being said, while I know this isn't officially a 3x04 scene, I tend to consider it the last of the 3x04 scenes because it's so closely related to the 3x04 chapters. There is so much that I love about this chapter. I love the way that Rumple communicates with both his son and the Dark Ones, that we seen him starting to take control of these situations in a way. I love that Rumple is able to at least put a band-aid on things with Baelfire, and I love that I got to setup season three and Baelfire finally understanding who Pan is in his family tree.
> 
> Thank you, RolfB, for your comments. Now that we've concluded the 3x04 chapters I'm interested to hear what you thought about them. I'm especially excited to introduce you to the next few chapters. We're going back to the Dark Castle, but only for a little bit. As you know, they're not going to stay there forever, as Rumple would like. What leads them back to their village...read on! Peace and Happy Reading!


	40. The Dark Castle

He had never had so much space in all his life!

This castle…it was perfect! It was enormous and strong, and looked powerful! His growing collection of artifacts, which now included Beowulf's Sword and a hammer no one but him had been able to lift, looked outstanding displayed as they were in the great room! And the chronicles, all his tubes, and instruments, he'd stored them in the upper tower, the one he'd found the caster in. It was wonderful not to have to leave the house in the dark of the night to do his work-to not spend his time between his home and his Aunts' old house! Now he had room to work, to breathe! He wasn't constantly tripping over his wheels or the table. His cane lay against the great room fireplace and was forgotten. His bedroom looked over the village below, and it was glorious! It was quiet. It was peaceful!

But Bae…

He'd hoped bringing him up here might bring a change for them, that it might make them closer together as they had once been in the hovel, before the curse. And at first, it seemed like it might work! After giving Baelfire a couple of days to pack his things, and a couple of nights when he had put any and every protection spell he could think of over the hovel and their new castle to keep Pan and his antics away permanently, he brought him to the castle. In the beginning, Bae had been astounded by it all. His eyes were wide as they walked through the large entry space, the big table now perfectly set for two, and up the grand staircase. It was only in the bedroom beside his own that Bae stopped to look at the four-poster bed. He ran his hands over the first true bed he'd ever owned, and when he turned back, he saw the sadness and confusion that had replaced the wonder and felt his stomach tighten.

"Who did it belong to?" Bae asked.

"A King," he answered guiltlessly. He'd expected a question like this from Bae and was more than prepared to answer it. The way Zoso had explained it, he hadn't done anything wrong; in fact, he'd warned the King and then put an end to his suffering. There was nothing nobler than that. "It belonged to a man who made a poor choice that killed half his Kingdom. He promised me anything if I ended his pain."

"'Ended his pain'! You…you killed him?"

"Don't think of it that way, son," he urged. "There was no other way to help him, and I helped him!"

"Papa…" Bae sighed, looking around the room. "This place…it gives me the creeps. Maybe we should just stay at the hovel, find a different place to live."

"You have nothing to fear in being here. I've protected all this land. You can play outside again Bae and not be fearful of-"

"Peter Pan? You still haven't told me who he is."

He was aware of that. Bae wouldn't let him forget it. He'd asked him every day since the incident who Peter Pan was. It seemed that when he promised to tell him when he was ready, Baelfire had been thinking in days, while he'd been thinking in years, maybe even decades.

"It's nothing, Bae. I promised you I'd tell you when you were ready and until then I've told you all you need to know."

Baelfire sighed as he sat down on the bed, anger clearly coursing through him just as it had that night. "You know…I'm not a boy anymore, father. I'll be fifteen soon. I'm nearly a man."

"'Nearly' doesn't mean you are." He knew the moment he said those words that he shouldn't have said them. But it was too late. And now Baelfire looked up at him with a mixture of hurt and anger he knew he couldn't correct with words. When Bae ran around him and hid somewhere within the castle, he let the guilt eat at him as the voices assured him this was a good decision and the boy would come around eventually.

But one of the side effects of having so much space meant that "coming around" suddenly had new meaning. As fall began to fade into Winter, he began to see that Bae rarely "came around" as he had when they'd been in the Hovel. At the house, they had been so close they could hear each other breath while they slept, and they tripped over each other constantly in their daily chores. Now he found he saw Bae at meals, when he tucked him in at night, and rarely in between. The more time he spent there, the more time he'd hoped he'd have for this son. Now, that hope seemed dashed. Soon after they moved in, the people from the village came to the castle in search of answers and help. They wanted to know what had happened during the Spell of Shattered Sight and looked to the people they'd always come to for answers. When they opened the door to find him, they were shocked, to say the least.

"The King is dead!" he proclaimed in a gruff voice as they shivered in the wind. "You are all free! My gift to you! Never will your children fight in wars, never will you pay another tax! Go! Enjoy your freedom!"

Part of him expected them to rejoice and was shocked to find they just stared at him. Their eyes wide with shock and then horror. For weeks he'd lived here with Baelfire without having to think about revealing himself and now that he had, it was too late. His appearance had given him away. Ashamed of his monstrous form once more he attempted to conceal himself inside the castle, only going out when necessary. Once a week, he took Baelfire and went down into the little village to purchase food and necessities. The children, young enough to be immune to their parent's fears, played in the streets practically ignoring his presence and he watched time after time as Baelfire looked at them longingly. He wanted to tell him to go and play, to join in with the other children, but when he saw the looks on the faces of those around him, when he remembered what had happened with the Sentry, his fear returned. He quickly pulled Bae closer and reminded him of the extensive grounds he now had to play in safely at home. And soon, he was pleased to discover the solution to his problem.

He hired a girl from the village. She was a nobody; the daughter of some farrier who had been born with a sixth toe and was considered unsuitable for marriage. Though she too feared him, he paid her handsomely in golden thread to come to the castle day in and out. She did the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, and for a while, it worked. Up in the morning, he never had to worry about breakfast, simply checked on Bae and went to his tower to work when his son was engaged. Dinner was always fixed right on time. The rooms, or at least those that he used in the castle, were always kept clean, with the exception of his own, because he felt uncomfortable letting her inside. The fires were always stoked. And lucky for him, despite their age difference, the woman was good for Bae. They talked, and she let him help with small chores and tasks, and every now and then he looked out the window of his tower and saw the pair playing in the yard with wooden sword. Though he longed for an expression like that from his son, he was at least happy to see he was light-hearted around her, joking as they both came to call their home "The Dark Castle". Morbid as he found the name he allowed it. Unlit, the halls were very dark.

Things were not perfect between the pair of them, but he was hoping with time that might change.

Until one night, his life did change, but not for the better.

As he and Baelfire sat enjoying their dinner, a knock rose through the castle and the Great Room. He could hear the girl in the next room, talking to the individual in hushed tones before she finally appeared.

"D-D-Dark One? Th-there's a man here. He…he wants your help."

Bae had glared at him as he rose from the table, curious about the stranger at their door. The man was sopping wet, and it was only then he noticed the rain outside. He'd traveled from the village to the castle in a rainstorm, all because he sought a concoction, something to reverse the effects on his mother's deteriorating mind.

"Please! She doesn't even recognize my daughter anymore! Something must be done!"

"But of course!" he chimed as the voices started shouting their suggestions in his head. "But the question is, what can you do for me?!"

He watched as the man nodded and reached into his bag. "I know you are a man of deals and so I have one for you. Behold! The Holy Grail of Camelot!"

Inside his mind, he felt a voice that preferred silence begin to stir.

 _"Lies!"_ Nimue shouted. _"That Grail was destroyed centuries before you were even born! I was there when it was."_

He was going to take her advice, to spew the hatred and distaste she had in his mind when he saw the look on the man's face. He was desperate, holding it out at arm's length, but he wasn't nervous or scared. He wasn't hoping he might fool him; he was expecting what he held would be enough to get him to make the concoction.

"You fool!" Nimue spat, suddenly standing by his side. "He lies! Send this worm and his forgery away with nothing. His life is more than he deserves!"

She was angry. But he was…curious. The wheel in his head was spinning. He accepted the deal, worthless as the goblet he offered was. Nimue fumed and screamed at him as he made the concoction the man needed, unhappy and unable to see why he'd done what he'd done.

"A foolish trade! I've shown you the history of the Grail! I've shown you what you must do and where it is! Why would you be so stupid as to accept what you know is a lie!"

"Because Dark Ones have failed for centuries before me listening to your voice in their heads!" he finally shouted back at her. "You obviously aren't getting anywhere with them so if I am to continue on your quest, it will be by my own plans! We know it is a fake, but to him it is genuine. If others know I'd rather them think the real one exists and is here. No one will dare come after it, and if they do, that is a person I want to speak with. You, on the other hand, I have nothing more to say to."

"You do well to watch your tone, boy!" she snarled, leaning across the table he was working on. "You think you can get rid of me? You can't! I'm always around, always waiting!"

But always quiet.

Nimue disappeared before he finished the potion and he heard not another word from her as he put the "Grail" in the Great Hall with his other pieces for display.

"What's that?" Bae asked when he saw it the next morning.

"Nothing…" he dismissed. "Just a clever forgery someone gave me for a memory-enhancing potion."

"A forgery? Did you know that when you gave him the potion?"

"Easily enough. The real one had very distinctive magic about it; this has nothing."

"So…you helped him just because?" Bae asked, hopefully.

He sighed. "Just because…"

Just because he had a plan. Just because he was still figuring things out. Just because he was unwilling to let such a fraud go. It wasn't "just because" in the sense Baelfire believed it to be. But as his son suddenly threw his arms around his waist, he couldn't bring himself to finish that "just because" out loud. He'd hoped, a small part of him had prayed, that with that goblet and the hug from his son that some of the walls might soon come down. But he was wrong.

More people came. In the cold of the Winter, through feet of snow and freezing rain strong enough to convince him he needed to look for another castle to take Bae to in the Winter, they came. One wanted something to give him hair. Another wanted a cure for a deadly disease their child had. Another wanted revenge for the murder of his family. On and on the demands went. He agonized as he worked, unable to turn down their various deals, how they had found him, how they had discovered his weakness and knew what to approach him with.

It was late one night, as he lay in bed that the answer came to him. He felt the pull. A now unmistakable urge that he was being summoned. And with Baelfire asleep in his bed, he allowed the feeling to rise, consume him, and take him away.

He appeared in a small wooden room. Lit by a single candle, he perceived that most of the room was shrouded in darkness and whoever it was that had called him, was hiding there within that darkness.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" he demanded, turning round and round. Finally, movement caught his eye and he was shocked to find a woman in a thin dressing gown step forward, a woman that he already knew. It was the girl. His maid. "You summoned me?"

She was shaking but held her head high as she groped for something in the dark. It was a book. It was one of the Chronicles! "You should pay closer attention to your possessions, Rumpelstiltskin."

He didn't know exactly what it was, but something about the way she'd said the words, the confidence she possessed and the look in her eyes connected it all in his mind.

"You're the one," he muttered suddenly. "You are the one who has told so many about me, about what I can do! You are the one that brought them to me."

"Yes, and don't we make a great team!" she smiled. She always answered the door. She always spoke in hushed whispers to her clients. She always seemed to know them. Why? What was the point?

"What do you want? Why would you call me here? My time is precious, and you are wasting it."

"Or am I enhancing it?" she demanded. "Since I arrived, you've been able to work more with Bae, and the castle properly looked after. The people of this village have come to respect and fear you and your work. The deals you've made have been profitable for everyone."

"What do you want?" he responded quickly. He didn't need a summary of what had happened since they'd moved to the castle.

"I want free of this place, of my own stigma. Tossed aside, good for nothing but a scullery maid all because of some extra bone and skin no one can see?!"

"If it's freedom you desire, then move."

"That's not the kind of freedom I want, Rumpelstiltskin. I want free from this place I was born to, free from my class of people."

"And how can the Dark One help with that? What deal would you make me?"

"The best one of your life. Take me as your bride. Make me your queen, and we can rule this land side by side."

For a heartbeat, there was dead silence in the wake of her offer. And then there was a cacophony of responses inside of his head. Mostly it was laughter from former Dark Ones, but there were several who offered their comments.

_"She's not good enough."_

_"Hear the girl out; she's pretty enough."_

_"Bloodthirsty girls are always the best."_

_"They are all foolish men! Listen to me! She's strong, and that could be good for you."_

_"She does make the boy happy."_

"Silence all of you!" Zoso suddenly screamed beside him. "What are you doing? Why are you considering this? This compassion, this desire to be loved is nothing more than human weakness still left inside of you. Listen to her! You've been trying to create a mask, a safe place to do the task you've been given, and she's been calling others to interrupt you to see beyond it! She hasn't been helping you; she's been hindering you! Listen."

When he stopped focusing on Zoso, sure enough, he realized that the girl had gone on talking to him, stating her case, reasons this would work out. Some were lude, based on base desires he'd been able to suppress for years. Others were well thought out and logical. But there was one that bothered him, scared him, more than anything else she'd said.

"What did you say about the dagger?"

The girl stopped and looked over at him. He'd barely been aware of it, but she'd been pacing as she talked and now she looked over at him hopefully. It was the look of someone who begged for attention, finally achieving their goal.

"Baelfire told me about it. I could help you hide it. Keep it safe. Keep you safe."

Zoso laughed. "She's nothing more than a pretender. Do you think she wants you, Rumpelstiltskin?! Do you think she feels love for you? Love makes people sick and bleary-eyed! See the desperation in her eyes? Recognize it? She is a desperate soul, Rumpelstiltskin! She isn't after you for your sake she's after you for the dagger, for the curse! Play into her hands, and soon it'll be you in her head! Who will protect the boy when she has your power?! This is why love kills more than disease! It makes you lose your sense of self, your sense of purpose! Don't lose it now!"

He stood still as she stepped forward carefully, until her chest rubbed against his own and he could feel her breath upon his chin.

"Do we have a deal?" she asked in a deep seductive voice.

He didn't need a moment to consider it. He knew all he had to about her and what would happen if he took that deal. It would be bad. For him, for Baelfire, for Nimue! Bad deal!

"No!" he growled before wrapping his hand around her neck. She shrieked only for a second before her voice was cut off and she began scratching at his hands. His thick skin meant that he barely felt it, but her knowledge of the dagger meant that she would feel what came next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say this chapter is part filler chapter, part long-term goals. Obviously, at the beginning, there is a lot of time that goes by as Bae and Rumple move into the castle and begin living new lives. But at the same time, toward the end, I used it to illustrate a line that came about in season three. Rumple's comment to Zelena when he states that she loves him is "I have that effect on women". Now, to me, that means that he is well aware there are women out there who fall for him just because he's the Dark One. I wanted to use this chapter to make him aware of that. I wanted to use this girl as an example of what he encounters that leads him to the conclusion of the effect he has on women. Does that make sense?
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you RolfB for your comments. Hard to believe but we're down to the last ten chapters! Don't worry, I don't think I rushed anything in it. We're still going to be in the Dark Castle for a bit longer as this incident, while certainly part of the reason they go back to the hovel, is not the entire reason they go back. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and now on to the next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	41. Everyone Needs Friends

The next morning when Bae came to the table and saw his father putting out pancakes for him, he froze, and his eyes widened. "Where's Ava?" he asked quickly.

"Ava?" he questioned as he finished putting out more platters laden with bacon and potato hash. "Who's Ava?"

"The maid!" Baelfire stated, taking only one step forward.

"Oh, her!" he piqued, licking some of the cream from the pancakes off his thumb.

 _"Ava, so that was her name…"_ one of the voices commented.

 _"You really should work on remembering those little treasures,"_ another added.

_"I thought we'd decided that after the Sentry..."_

All the voices spoke the truth. It hadn't dawned on him until that moment that he hadn't known her name. What they'd had was a business arrangement, not a deal, he never thought he needed a reason to learn her name and really hadn't cared about it until this moment either. But it had dawned on him that Baelfire might ask that question at some point in the morning and he was well prepared with an answer.

"She quit!" he lied. "Early this morning she sent word that she'd found other work. We'll find a new maid soon enough, I imagine. And until then…pancakes for breakfast."

He pulled out the chair that belonged to his son, but Bae didn't move, just stood there and stared at him. He sighed and moved closer. "I did offer to raise her pay, but she said she'd rather go, Bae. It couldn't be helped."

"You're lying," Bae croaked out, now that he was close enough he could see the tears in his eyes. "Ava didn't leave, did she? You killed her!"

"Oh now why would you say that?" he questioned, laughing nervously. Bae had been asleep last night when he left and still asleep when he returned. He hadn't been to the village and even if he had surely even they wouldn't have discovered her missing. And "missing" was bound to be the conclusion of any investigation into her disappearance. He'd had no choice but to dispose of her. She knew about the dagger and the castle, she knew how to summon him and how he worked, he and Zoso had both agreed it was a recipe for disaster. It was his fault, of course, he hadn't noticed that in her chores she'd been doing so much snooping, that she'd talked as much as she had to Baelfire, but there was no helping it. For his own safety and Bae's, he had to get rid of her. They'd never find the body. So how had Bae assumed…

"Because she told me she wouldn't quit, not without saying good-bye. She was planning on marrying someone soon. She wouldn't tell me who, but she promised I'd be allowed to come."

"It's never wise to promise what one can't deliver."

"She wouldn't leave without saying good-bye to me!" Bae insisted. "And yesterday, before she left she told me…she told me that if anything ever happened to her, it would be because of you! You killed her, didn't you?!"

He stared open-mouthed at the boy, in wonder and shock at what that girl, Ava, had been up to. _"Clever girl,"_ Zoso commented, and he was right. First the Sentry, then Pan, and now the maid…they'd all figured out how to manipulate Bae against him by implicating him in their crimes and assigning guilt that didn't belong to him. Clever girl. But not clever enough. Baelfire was his son, not hers. She didn't know the bond a father and son could have.

"Bae…it wasn't all like-"

"You killed her! Just like you killed the King, and the Ogres, and Beowulf!"

"Beowulf…"

"No!" Bae screamed through his tears. "I don't want to hear your excuses, Papa! She was my one friend here, and now she's gone because of you!"

And with that, Baelfire turned and ran from the room. In the far off distance, he heard the door to his bedroom slam closed, and he slumped down into Bae's chair. He was exhausted by this. He was exhausted by the war that he was fighting with Bae day in and day out. Things got better for some time, and then they got worse again. Then better then worse, then back to better and it was only a matter of time until worse struck again.

"It is the curse of the Dark One," Zoso said hovering by the fireplace. "You want to do good, and you want to do right, but no matter how hard you try you'll never outrun a blackening heart."

"I took this curse on to do good."

"And you will, when you destroy the notion of good magic and bad magic and make it so neither exists anymore. Stay focused on your duty Rumpelstiltskin. The boy…he'll come around."

But it seemed that this time he was destined for nothing but punishment. Bae did eventually come out of his room, in search of food and drink, but he was quiet. He didn't speak with him. He often found him sitting in the windows, looking out at them and avoiding his gaze. It had been a week since Ava died, but he was beginning to feel like ages since he'd seen his son. The memory of a smiling happy Baelfire lived in his mind, but not in this castle. And slowly what Bae and the maid had said began to creep into his thoughts.

Night after night, as he sat at his wheel in the Great Room, spinning straw into gold instead of wool because there was no one to gather wool for him now, he began to wonder about what could be done. He did have expansive grounds here, and Bae…he'd didn't have many friends. Without Bae to talk to the halls were quiet and he knew that without him to talk to Bae must sense that too. The hovel had never seemed this empty, mostly because it was small, but he remembered, he could think back to the earliest days of his marriage when he remembered the life Milah had brought to the place before she'd grown disenchanted. Perhaps the Maid's ideas hadn't been so terrible. Well, they were, obviously, but the base idea of sharing all this with someone, it wasn't an awful idea.

"Love is a weakness," Zoso chanted. "It opens you up to disappointment and despair. Besides…who would ever take on a cursed coward such as yourself!"

He could think of only one person, one woman that he had never seen romantically before now, but always believed he could have learned to.

Margery. It had been years since he'd last seen her, since she'd gone to be married to a stranger, but he could remember their time together. He could remember their last moments when she had all but admitted that if things were different they would have been good for one another and he wished that he could save her from the fate of marrying a stranger. Maybe it wasn't too late. Bae had loved Margery and her children. She'd continued to send letters when she could. Maybe this curse could be a blessing; maybe he could still save her and get back what they had.

When Bae was asleep, he used his magic. He found her. Though it had been dark and late at the castle, this small town was only just preparing for bed. It was a grand house that he found her in, but she hadn't lost anything that she'd once had. She was still active. He watched through the window as she sent the maids to bed with a smile and grabbed a bucket and then rose herself to stretch and…

She was pregnant. It wasn't too apparent in her dress, but when she put her hands on her back and bent backward he could see the way her belly stuck out more than it should, and he could see the way she cradled it with one arm as she went toward the barn. Quietly he used magic to let himself inside and watched as she set a stool by a goat with swollen utters. She was beautiful, in a plain sort of way. Why had he never noticed that before?

Suddenly she shifted. She rose from her place at the stool and began looking around wildly as if she'd heard something, but he was certain he'd been quiet.

"Hello!" she cried out. "Is someone there?! I can feel your eyes on me! I have no money, please just…Rumpelstiltskin!" Unable to bear the thought that she was terrified someone had come to hurt her, he took a step toward the light, just enough to let her see his frame. And then he watched as her face transformed from fear into one of exuberant happiness! She smiled wide as she nearly ran across the barn to embrace him-

But then stopped short when she could sense something not quite right.

"What happened to you?" she asked skeptically. "You've…changed."

Never change. That was her command the last time he'd seen her. Part of him believed the voices in his head, telling him now that the change was for the better but looking at her now, remembering the way they'd snuck around while their children had played happily together, two widows with itches that needed scratching and a strong friendship forged from their spouses' betrayals…he wondered. It would have been nice to go back to that. But people didn't live in moments. Time went on. Life, and war, had happened.

"The Ogre Wars," he muttered casting his eyes to the ground. "They came calling for Bae."

Margery gasped and put one hand to her mouth as the other went to her belly. "Oh no…" she breathed. "Is he…is he alright?! What happened?!"

"He's fine," he insisted quickly. He couldn't bear to let her think that he was injured, or that he hadn't protected him, protected all the children. "I did what I had to do to protect him."

Margery was always smart, and she hadn't lost that in the time she'd been away. Instead, she stared at him with curiosity as she reached for the hand hanging idly by his side and examined it. He was different than when she'd last touched him there or anywhere. His skin was thick; it was green and gold, brownish-black in this kind of light. His nails were thick and brown, his teeth rotted. He just prayed she couldn't see his eyes. She was a strong woman, but those would come at a shock to her he was certain. He was different, but still…it was a small price to pay for Bae to be at home safe and sound, if angry.

"It's a curse," he explained. "But it's been more of a blessing."

"A blessing?" she breathed, looking him over in the low light. She didn't believe him, he could tell that much. But he could convince her. She was pregnant, but pregnant didn't always mean happy! He and Milah had been pregnant and fearful, sad, and miserable until Bae came along. One did not always mean the other. He'd seen her, but for all he knew the man she'd married was every bit as bad as he hoped he was.

"I can take you away from here," he suggested as his heart began to pound quickly against his chest. He hadn't realized until this moment how nervous this idea made him. "I can take you, your children, your…your unborn child. I can take you to a castle, where Bae is at. We could be a family, just like we wanted to be before."

"But…" He watched as her face shifted, a million different emotions crossing it in seconds. Confusion to sorrow, sorrow to happiness, happiness to sadness, sadness to pity, pity to happiness again as a smile spread over her mouth but sadness touched her eyes and she tightened her grip on the hand she held. "I already have a family," she assured him.

The words, few as they were, were not just a point, they were an answer. A carefully tailored answer that told him all he needed to know. He was too late.

"He is good to you then?"

"Very," she smiled. "And to the children, even those that aren't his," she beamed before placing her hand at her belly. She was blushing. So there it was. She was truly happy here, happier than she'd been with him, happier than she'd been in the village, happier than she'd been with Rolf. He was glad. He was. But he couldn't help feeling an immense sadness when she looked back up at him. "Rumpelstiltskin-"

"It was a foolish notion," he interrupted. "Me coming back here to check on you, believing that you might prefer a creature like me."

"Don't say that," she smiled. "It was sweet."

"It was a weakness, to hope that I might save you as I had once saved Bae."

"It's not! It's just…you were a good friend when I needed it, a friend when I had none, and everyone needs friends! You still are my friend, I hope. But David…he's already saved us! And…I think about you and Bae all the time. My hopes for you haven't changed! I still hope and pray that one day you'll find a woman who will truly see you as Milah never did! A woman who will see beyond…" but when she put her hand to his chin to lift his face toward the light he watched as that hopeful look fell away into one of shock and then fear. "This…"

The gaze was too much. Outside the barn, he heard footsteps, and without another word, he let himself vanish before her eyes for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! Surprise! Margery is back! I told you that she was really important to this fiction even though she only shows up in a couple of chapters. This is the other chapter she shows up in. She opened this fiction and I know that she's not exactly finishing out this fiction but we're so close to it that she really may as well. I really wanted her to come back for a chapter like this to show a couple of things. First, Rumple's heroism. I wanted to show that he has it in him. He's probably one of the grayest characters on the show all because he's not really truly evil. He does everything for a reason. Here we see that after Ava he's thinking long term and remembers Margery and really goes back to see if she needed saving. I think it's a good assumption that if she was suffering he would have taken her away. Instead, he finds her happy and that leads to reason number two. I wanted to show that he is thinking about love. Margery's words here are certainly meant to be a bit prophetic, just as her last words in the first chapter were. She told him not to change, and he obviously has. But her optimism hasn't changed. She still has hope that someone will see him for who he truly is even if she's dead in the ground by that point. Third, we get to see a bit of Rumple's self-esteem diminish. What he does here really is sweet, just as Margery says, but he goes right to "this is stupid, why did I do, it?" And yeah, was it a smart thing? No, it was impulsive. But was it sweet? Yes, definitely.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I'm interested to hear what you think of this chapter. I hope it's positive. I know it was a really small part but I love Margery's relationship to Rumple and I loved letting her start the fiction and be close to the end. Peace and Happy Reading!


	42. An Uneven Compromise

Everyone needs friends.

With only a couple of months until Baelfire's birthday, he'd been thinking about those words almost non-stop, ever since Margery had said it a few weeks ago.

 _"He'll come around,"_ the voices believed. Or at least that was what they told him, but he didn't believe it, not anymore. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard his son's voice. He couldn't remember the last time they'd had a pleasant evening or spun thread together, or read a book, or anything! He'd even given up asking about Pan, and while part of him was thankful for that, another part of him would welcome the argument again just to hear his voice!

He was miserable. He could see that now. He was probably more miserable now than when he'd insisted he stay in the hovel because he hadn't trusted the Sentry. Something needed to be done.

"It's foolish!" Zoso argued with him in the tower when he came to a conclusion to find Bae and make it right. "You are the Dark One, the parent, not the boy!"

"I am the parent!" he hissed at Zoso, finally unable to handle the man's desperate, pathetic ramblings! Sometimes Zoso behaved no better than a child desperate for attention. "You may be the expert on the Dark One, but you are not the expert on my son, and I will handle him any way I care to!" he shouted before moving around him.

Bae wasn't in his room. That was normal. But where he'd be…it could be anywhere. He went room by room, floor by floor. He searched until he came to a hallway with bench seating by the windows. And there, at the farthest end of the hall, his son sat huddled in one corner of the seat. His head pressed to the window, looking out over the snow that was falling onto the grounds, his expression was one of depression and boredom.

"I knew I'd find you somewhere," he announced, approaching the window. He was prepared to grab him, for Bae to get up and try to walk away. He was prepared to tell him they needed to talk. But he wasn't prepared for Bae to just sit there and pretend he did not exist, to not even move at his presence.

"The Winters are longer up here," he commented as he moved closer to the window and finally sat in the corner opposite him. "I'm sure you'll be happy to play outside again when the snow melts."

Nothing.

Not a move. Not a twitch. Not a word.

But he didn't run away, and that was something. There wasn't much room on the window seat, hardly any at all actually and twisting his body up to fit across from Bae was uncomfortable, but it reminded him a lot of the Hovel. Of the way they lived before they'd come to this place, always tripping over each other and making accommodations for the small space. His son wasn't talking or looking or even reacting to him. But he could smell him. For the first time in a long time, he could smell him, and he hadn't realized how much he'd missed that smell until that moment. Together on the seat, with words or without, so long as he had that smell and his presence…it was something.

"It's ridiculous," Zoso huffed. He ignored him. He was the Dark One now, not him. He could choose to ignore him for non-Dark One related advice. So he leaned his head back against the wall, and sat there with Baelfire, watching the snow fall thicker over the grounds. Watching the snow from the height of a stone castle in the mountains, even he had to admit he was a little homesick for the warm feeling the hovel would have left them with.

"Amazing how few places there are to hide in such a big place."

He felt his eyes widen as he looked over at Bae. His head hadn't moved, it was still pressed to the window staring out over the grounds, if it weren't for the fog that had gathered where his mouth was, he would have believed it was just another voice in his head. At the first words he'd said to him in weeks his first instinct was to reach out and hug Bae close to him, but he didn't want to overdo things. He didn't want him to regret starting a conversation. So he just sat there and looked back out the window and pretended it meant nothing.

"It would have been a good place to play hide and seek when you were younger," he added timidly.

"My favorite place to hide was always under all the wool."

He smiled. "I know."

Suddenly Bae picked up his head and looked at him, actually looked at him for the first time in weeks. "You did?"

He nodded and let himself be filled up with those warm memories of pretending to search the house for Bae, all the while knowing exactly where he was.

"I used to try and pick every place I could before looking there last. All children have a favorite hiding spot, and all parents know it. I always used to enjoy hiding under the wool as a boy too."

And there it was. For only a second, he saw it; a small twitch at the corner of his mouth that could have been a smile. That was what he'd waited for. They weren't ruined entirely. They just had to work through this.

"Bae…this war between us…it has to end, son." At the change of subject, Bae turned his gaze out the window again, and he felt his heart give an unpleasant twist. No. They'd made progress! He couldn't lose it now! "What do you want, Bae?" he urged. "Tell me, what will make you happy? Anything at all! It's yours!"

Bae turned back to him again, curiosity and skepticism in his eyes. He wondered how much longer he'd be able to do that, to read his son's facial expressions like a book. He hoped it never ended, but if they couldn't get past this, then he feared it was what was doomed to happen.

"No deals required?" Bae asked in a small voice.

"No! Of course not!" he insisted. He didn't see the point in bringing up the fact that they had already made a deal like that before, they'd made several deals for Bae's happiness all of which he'd followed through on, but Bae had broken. He'd never been happy all those times he'd promised he would be.

"I want to go home."

"This is your home, Bae."

But he only shook his head. "No…you know what I mean, Papa."

He sighed in disappointment. Yes. He did know what he meant. But he didn't like it, nor did he understand it. "Back to the hovel? Back to the wind and rain, the leaky roof, a dirt floor?!"

Bae nodded. "Back home."

He would have thought he'd learned by now not to make promises he couldn't keep. Taking Bae back to the Hovel and out of this fortress…he shouldn't have promised him anything.

"You are safe here, Bae."

"But not happy!" he bit back. "You're the Dark One, Papa; I'm safe anywhere you are. But I miss my friends. I miss my school."

"I can teach you."

"I miss home! My bed!"

"You have a bed here. A real one!"

"Papa…a castle is nice, but with no one to share it with…"

"I'm here, Bae!"

But the look on Bae's face told him that he disagreed with that statement. He didn't understand how he could, though. He was here. There was no denying it. How could Bae feel he wasn't?

"You asked what would make me happy," Bae pointed out. "I'm telling you, this would make me happy. Let's go home, Papa, where we belong. Please."

Please. One simple word that always seemed to get the better of him. Even when Milah was around, he had a soft spot for that word. After years of using that word with his father to no avail, he considered "please" a word born of begging and pleading. It was a word of utter desperation and yet saying "yes" to Bae on this…was it him or hadn't they had conversations like this before?

"And if we go home and things go back to the way they were? After the war?"

At that, Bae paused because they both knew that things hadn't been good after the war. Many of Bae's friends had abandoned him because of what he was. Not all, but most. And then their relationship had soured because of it. If Bae went back for his friends and they found it happened again…

"It won't be that way, Papa. You can try harder. I…I can learn to live with what you are, the things you do the deals you make. I can learn to understand it's the Dark One and not you, I won't run away again if only I have friends."

"Now that is a tempting deal…" Zoso hissed, suddenly interested beside him.

Yes, it was. But it wasn't a perfect deal. It wasn't even really a deal it was just a suggestion. And it was the implication of that suggestion he didn't like. It wasn't an acceptance of who he was, it was a division. There was Rumpelstiltskin, his father, and then there was Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One. All this for a few friends he may or may not have when they got home?

"You know, I never had many friends when I was your age."

"I'm not like you, Papa. And do you really…"

But Bae stopped and bit his lower lip and closed his eyes. It was as if he had to stop the words from coming out.

"What?"

After a moment, Bae turned back to him. "Do you really want me to grow up and be like you?"

"No!" Zoso practically screamed in his ear. "'Like you' means The Dark One! He'll take your power! He'll seize the dagger! Destroy you!"

No. Bae wouldn't. Whether he could remember it or not his distaste of the dagger and curse were evident after the Beowulf incident. But still, that didn't mean he wanted his son to be like this, with the voices of so many in his ear.

"No, I don't want you to grow into what I've become."

Bae smirked. "I don't want that either, Pop. But I meant who you were before the war."

"A coward?!"

"No…a man with no allies and no friends to fight with him. A man whose only resource was thread and wool?"

He'd never thought about it before, not really. In his mind, Bae would always grow up to be a spinner but now that he thought about all that entailed…

"No…I don't want that for you either." But that didn't mean that going home was as simple as all that. Bae was only one of the reasons they'd moved. Did he truly want to go back to storing his stuff in his aunts' old home? To sneaking out night after night to do his magic? To having people knock on the hovel door at all hours to get help from him as they did here? He had freedom here! There were no chains, no suspicions! He could go up to his tower and work whenever he needed!

"But Bae…there are things I need to do here, things that I can't do as easily when we're at the hovel."

"What kind of things?"

He didn't have time to think about what would happen if he told Bae his plans or his mission. He didn't think about how he would react. All he saw was a cloaked woman in the shadows behind his son, sneering at him. Nimue shook her head one time and no more, a warning. He didn't dare.

"I'm not a normal spinner like I used to be Bae. This castle allows me to do my work."

Nimue vanished.

"Okay…" Baelfire pushed himself off the wall and sat forward, easily the closest he'd gotten to him since he'd killed Ava. "The key to any good deal is compromise, right?"

"Amateur," Zoso sneered.

"More or less," he explained, ignoring the ghost at his side.

"Then let's compromise. Let's go home, Papa. It's cold up here, so much colder than the village, and no one has been to see you since Ava…left. Let's go home, let me go back to school there, and we can spend our summers here. Our weekends too! Or any other time you have to be here! I won't argue, I won't complain. I'll come with you. We can be back here in the blink of an eye with your magic! Just…let me go back to school. Let's go home!"

His desperation was clear. His desire was obvious. In the compromise he'd suggested, he benefited far more than Bae would. The fact that Bae was willing to give so much to get so little was a testament to how much he missed home. But would this work? Would it work the way he wanted to or would it only lead to more disappointment?

"If we go back…will things be different? Between you and me? We can be a family again?"

After a few moments, Baelfire nodded in agreement. "We can try, Papa. What more can we do?"

What more could they do but try?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so they're heading back to the hovel. I told you it wouldn't be long before that happened. I always thought it was important to spend at least a little bit of time at the Castle, for Baelfire to actually live there, since it's mentioned in Moments a few times. But I always knew they were never going to stay long and that it wouldn't exactly be a time of lasting memories.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments on the last chapter. I hope as you read this chapter you find the reason they return is acceptable. It is, perhaps, not the best, but it got the job done. One more chapter until we get into the 1x19. It's important, but not in a way you might expect. Peace and Happy Reading!


	43. His Own Plans

"No!"

"You fool!" Zoso hissed as Rumpelstiltskin clutched his burned and shaking hand at the wrist. He wasn't sure what hurt more, his hand, the tingling spreading like lightning through his entire body, his back from where he'd transported himself back to his aunts' house and stumbled over a cauldron, or the strange ache coming from his leg! Fortunately, for him, pain, even present pain, was something of the past. It was his hand. It hurt the most, so he placed his other hand over the top of it and centered his magic so that it healed quickly, back to normal. With that under control, he realized he was still shaking, still feeling like there was nothing but energy coursing, sizzling through him. He wasn't sure there was really anything to be done about it.

"Well, of course, there's not!" Zoso screamed at him. "A spell for good intentions…cast with Dark Magic…it's enough to fool a weak warlock at best, you think it's enough to get past The Apprentice's spells?!"

"I wasn't trying…to get past the tower…" he breathed. His back was sore, but he didn't think anything was broken. It was his leg that bothered him the most right now. Well, his leg as well as Zoso's nagging.

"No, it was a suicide mission! Trying things like that-"

"Will alert the Apprentice!" he screamed back at the ghost. "As I told the Original, Dark Ones who have attempted this in the past, who have followed after the ideas of previous Dark Ones have done nothing but fail! Every time I walk by that TowerI can feel the magic rolling off of it; he's placed just as many protection spells over the Tower as I have over the Hovel. If I present myself as enough of a threat, I'll have no need to find the Apprentice. He will come to me!"

Whining! It was nothing but constant whining and chattering and noise in his head! And he was convinced that if anything was going to fix it for good, it wasn't doing what they wanted, that only elicited failure in the past. It wasn't following after those voices like sheep, it was going to be originality.

"You dare to question us. You dare to question Nimue."

"You're nothing but voices in my head!" he shouted as he untied his boot to look at his aching leg and saw that the way he'd landed at forced the blade of his tucked away dagger into his skin. It wasn't a deep gash, but he was bleeding. "I long to be free from you all just as I long to be free from his anchor I keep tied to me!" he spat as he tossed the dagger aside. He had to find something better than keeping it with him all the time. Someplace safe for it.

Across the room, Zoso began to laugh.

"Foolish, Rumpelstiltskin!" he mocked as he crossed back to the place he sat and knelt in front of him. "To get rid of the Apprentice would be the key to your freedom as well. Do not mistake the order of your desires, Rumpelstiltskin! I made that mistake for you, long ago! Look inside my mind, not your own. See what I see!"

What he saw…what he saw was suddenly not a room, but a chamber. A long set of downward stairs that let no natural light in.

_Flames. Torches. A man, in long red robes sweeping the floor._

_There was a breeze, a wind that traveled around the open chamber. It was fast and cold, it sent a chill up his spine! It blew out some of the flames he saw. And it alerted the old man. He watched as he stopped sweeping and pulled from his ropes an impossibly long sword. Clever old man…he was no match for-_

_"Show yourself, Dark One!"_

_It was almost enough to give him pause, it was almost enough to convince him to stop and wonder how he'd known, but he was powerful. And he could feel nothing of power coming from this housemaid before him. If his sources were right, this was the place he was meant to be. He could feel magic in this place, and this helpless man was attempting to guard it; he stood no chance. Not with the creator of the key to his freedom was nothing more than bark!_

_"You are not the Sorcerer!" he sneered, walking toward the man._

_"No…I am his Apprentice."_

_The words brought him to a standstill. His heart began to race. The man before him offered a small honorable nod, and suddenly he felt a flash of magic, of power that radiated not from the room but off of him. His protections were admiral, and he couldn't help but stand in awe of the being before him, of the being that had for so long eluded so many Dark Ones! This was him. This…broken, pitiful man…he was the Apprentice?! He'd expected more than dank chambers and freshly swept floors._

_"And you are not the First Dark One I have faced."_

_The Apprentice took long strides closer to him. He stood still as the old man raised his sword, his gate staggering only a little as he prepared to bring the blade down on him-_

_He vanished. Without a puff of smoke. A smile grew on his face as he watched from across the room as the man struggled to gain control of his balance after hitting nothing but air. Fool! Pitiful! This would be easy. How had he hidden from so many Dark Ones for so long?! And how Insignificant had the other Dark One's been to never have been able to defeat this weak creature? Powerful as he could feel he was, he wasn't even using magic!_

_Finally, the man turned, he spun and located where he was at by the dais. He prepared his sword, began his stride…_

_But this time he would be the one to strike first._

_He raised his hand and a blast of power and air shot forth. The Apprentice and his sword fell away from him and crumpled in defeat by the stairs. Some guardian._

_The Apprentice disposed of; he was too set on his task to pause and rejoice or celebrate at his success. He'd have time for that later after he'd retrieved what he came here for._

_Behind him, he turned to mount the dais. For there, on top of the dais…that was his prize. His freedom from the Dagger. A hat crafted by Merlin. Lost for nearly as long as the Apprentice, now he knew it was because it was guarded by the same man! Oh, it was beautiful. It looked like the sky. A round golden container that seemed like an endless pool of reflected stars. He'd done his research, he had the whispers of Nimue and Gorgon in his head and the accounts of it in the Chronicles, he knew that when the stars aligned perfectly, when he had everything he'd need for the spell, it would be his chance at freedom, a life away from the call of the dagger, and just maybe, the voices as well. He should take it and go, but he couldn't resist…just a peek at what he'd won!_

_He moved his hands up and over the box, summoning all the power he could muster._

_"You don't want to know what you'll unleash, if you open that box."_

_He felt anger rip through him at the voice that came from behind. Still alive? How was that possible? He'd tossed that wretched old man far enough his back should have broken! At the very least, his head had hit hard enough he should still be knocked out!_

_Nevermind! What he wanted, not what Nimue wanted, was within his grasp! He'd take care of the Apprentice later! In the meantime, he was more offended that he'd assumed he was unintelligent! He turned, and moved the hood of his cloak off his face._

_"Then the Sorcerer should not have put his faith in someone like you!" he spat back. He was closer than any Dark One had ever been and all it had taken was a few spells. He didn't know how this man had survived so long, but he knew his defeat was pathetic enough; cowering there on the ground, making no effort to get up to protect. He'd taken two swings of the sword, and that was it. Merlin's Apprentice was nothing but a weak and scared boy in an old man's body. He was just as Nimue remembered._

_He turned back to the box. He raised his hands over it, called forth his power, and channeled it into the dagger before slicing through the magic he felt binding the hat within the box._

_A blast of magical energy tore through his body. He would have screamed, but his muscles seized up, his jaw locked, and before he knew it, he was the one flying through the air, feet over head, head over feet. It was only by his own luck that his hand remained clenched around the dagger. He landed hard. His breath knocked out of him as his back collided with stone and his head slammed painfully against it. He'd have to heal his skull from the break before he moved on. It was cracked open. He knew it was!_

_"Fortunately, Zoso, I am not the only thing he puts his faith in…" he lifted his head off the ground and saw the old man hovering above him, standing perfectly on two feet. He'd given the old man a much stronger dose of magic than he'd received. How was it possible he was up and moving again, and he was here, struggling for breath and sense?_

Fool! You simple, unplanning, moron!

_He could hear Nimue chanting with quiet anger in his head, the other voices, their whispers were taunts. How could he have thought it would be so easy?_

_"An Enchantment!" he cried in realization. It was something he hadn't planned on._

_"Cursed by the Sorcerer himself," the Apprentice confirmed as he picked up his Sword. "That no one who has succumb to the Darkness in their heart can ever break it. Now be gone."_

_Be gone. Just like that? So simply? After all, he'd gone through to get here? A simple enchantment a curse of the Sorcerer would stop him?! No. Not so simple. But not impossible. As he raised his hand, he looked over his prize once more but not for the last time. A curse placed there by the Sorcerer, was it? Fortunately, if there was anyone who knew about curses in this world…it was him!_

Rumpelstiltskin stared up at Zoso, the memory in his head not his own and yet his own property now. He didn't know what he felt looking up at the man. Hate. Anger. Pity? Pity that such a man was more like him that he sometimes thought. Pity that he'd been stupid enough to think it would be so simple. Pity that he hadn't seen how the man had been compensating and shielding his magic from detection!

But he was also thankful for him as well. For the vision he'd just shown him had given him valuable information. The Apprentice was more powerful that Zoso thought! He should have known better! But for his own purposes, it was useful. He had to find the Apprentice? Now he knew what he looked like, how he acted, the taste of the muted magic that surrounded him. He needed to know how to free himself from the clutches of the dagger, how to be his own master again! Now he knew. He'd read something about what he'd seen in the Chronicles, but seeing that little box that contained the hat that was his salvation was overwhelming. Plans were forming in his head, and all of them hinged on a single face he saw in his mind's eye — the Apprentice.

"Kill the Apprentice, and the hat is yours," he looked up to find Nimue standing in the place Zoso once had. "Kill the Apprentice, and Merlin's Tower will open for you like a book. Kill the Apprentice, and everything you want-power, that look of acceptance in your son's eyes, freedom from that cursed dagger-it will all be yours."

"I have a plan," he insisted.

Nimue narrowed her gaze at him, a look of intelligence and superiority he didn't care for one bit. "So have so many others."

"At your behest," he pointed out. "I have a plan all my own. Trust me, it'll work, eventually. Go away from me now…I have to get back to Bae."

This new situation they found themselves in, transporting himself back and forth from the hovel to his aunts' house while Bae was in school, it worked, but it wasn't ideal. It allowed him to work in a stable safe place during the day while Bae went to school, but interrupting himself when Bae was out so that he could get back and spin night after night, in an effort to make things normal for Bae certainly limited what he was capable of. He tried putting on a good face, trying to pretend that he accepted living back in the village again. But he longed to return to his Tower and end this.

"That boy holds you back from your true purpose in this world!"

It was Zoso again. Nimue had retreated and left him in her place. That was a good thing as he felt anger rear up inside of him at such a suggestion.

"Don't you dare, ever speak of my son that way again!"

"You are my concern, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Exactly. So you worry about me. I'll worry about my son. And I'll hear nothing further from you on the subject."

Zoso sneered but obediently vanished, leaving him to focus on what he was feeling, not only emotionally, but physically as well. His nerves were frayed, sizzling just like the energy coursing through his body. His leg, his arm, his back, those were easily healed. But the magic he felt from Merlin's Tower was not as easily cured. He needed to use it. It was moments like this that he thought most of the words Nimue had mentioned, of the promise that she'd dangled in front of him in exchange for the success she'd never had. If he succeeded, he could have everything.

Everything.

That was all he'd ever wanted. And from what he'd seen and what he felt at this moment it wasn't that difficult, he just had to own it. Own it…and the being he saw in front of him would leave him alone for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter before heading into the 1x19 chapters which is officially the last section of this fiction. Listen, we've all seen the show, we all know what's coming so I feel pretty content in telling you that this chapter exists just to contrast Dark One Rumple before Baelfire went missing to after he went missing. In this fiction, Nimue gave him a job to do and we commented that going forward he doesn't really seem bothered or devoted to that task. In my opinion, that is because he's so caught up with going after Baelfire he really doesn't care. Which is why this chapter is important. I think this chapter shows, for one brief moment, what life would have been like for him if Baelfire had never gone missing. I think he would have continued to pursue the issue using his own plans, I think he would have eventually succeeded too. But unfortunately, his world is about to change dramatically and this Rumple, the Rumple who is so set on breaking into the Tower, is a Rumple we'll never get to know.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for the comments you left on the last chapter. I hope you'll like this chapter, I hope you'll like some of the ways that we're starting to see Rumple take control over the previous Dark Ones and fight back against them. I wanted it to be a process from beginning to end and now that we're heading toward the end of it all, we get to see him stronger than he was before, smarter in a way. I'm looking forward to hearing what you think about it all. We're getting into 1x19 tomorrow. Seven chapters left! Let's bring it on! Peace and Happy Reading!


	44. Getting Comfortably Worse

He closed the door to his aunt's house all the while his skin crawled with the extra energy still coursing through him. Curse Merlin and his trap! This was a particularly clever one, designed to ensure that he felt the sting of his incompetence, potentially for days to come if he didn't figure out how to dispel it safely. Of course, he could figure such things out easily if he were in his tower instead of here…again.

He and Baelfire had gone back to the castle only for a couple of weekends since they'd left, mostly at times that their small village had been struck by snow so bad there was no point in even trying to step outside their front door. When there was snow in this place, they escaped to that place for the weekend, and now that there was snow in that place…well, he couldn't lie, he just wanted to go back there, to working in the environment he preferred instead of sneaking around, back and forth, from the hovel to his aunts' old house. In the castle, he'd inherited books from that little witch who had cursed the Kingdom. Books on magic like his aunts and the Chronicles didn't account for. He had no doubt he could solve this if only he had space. Not to mention, the time.

He'd hired a new maid, a mute woman named Onora, who was married but lived on the outskirts of town with her husband who was deaf. He couldn't hear, she couldn't talk…they were a match made in heaven, or so he supposed. Onora took care of a lot of the little chores in the Hovel, the cooking and cleaning, those things that he didn't want to be bothered with anymore, not since having it done for him in the castle. But for Bae's sake, he had tried to make a decent living again over the last couple of months. He returned to the spinning when Bae was around. He tried to earn a wage the way Bae had confessed he wanted him to by making a thread that wasn't gold. But when his former clients hid in their homes or bought from him with barely a question to the quality, he began to get more and more frustrated. Zoso and the other voices were always so difficult to ignore when he was frustrated.

But soon there would be no need! This was a compromise after all, and while he was miserable now, he wouldn't be soon. It was a beautiful day. The snow was nearly melted entirely, the chill from Winter still hung in the air but he'd noticed that it was disappearing a little more every day. Soon it would be Spring. Soon school would be over, and it would be his turn. As their deal allotted, he'd take Baelfire back to the castle for the Summer instead of just on the occasional snowy weekend. Soon he wouldn't have to work out of his aunts' house anymore, and he'd be back to his tower, back to the magic, and the deals, and back to figuring out how to get the Apprentice's attention and break this cycle all the Dark One's dreaded.

Then he could find an outlet for this extra magic inside of him. And wouldn't that just make Merlin squirm to know what the magic he'd placed there for protection had wrought?

Home. The hovel. He rounded the corner, intending to go inside and stoke the fire and check on their new maid. It was a nice day out, not warm but certainly not freezing like it was in the Winter and naturally the village was bustling. Even though they'd returned to find that homes around him had been moved or leveled, they still passed by here on occasion. As he searched a group of children playing in the road for Bae, he found his son wasn't among them. He was standing before another man. Well, he was on two feet, but one of his hands was hunched over his knee as if he was in pain as the man spoke with him, his hands in the air, eyes wide. His stomach turned.

"Protect!" one of the voices roared.

"It's fine. It was the donkey's fault," he heard the man exclaim to Bae. "You want a chicken? Or some eggs?"

"It's alright, no. I should probably just…"

"What's going on?" he questioned rounding on the pair of them. The world stopped at his words. He didn't see it, but he could feel it. Where there was once a hustling and bustling group of people taking advantage of the decent temperatures, now there was silence. He felt the work cease as he strode over to the man and his donkey, his eyes narrowed on the situation he was trying to decipher. He felt it just as he felt Zoso leering over his shoulder. Why was this man apologizing to Bae? And why was his son holding his knee like it was in pain?! He had a feeling he knew, and if it was true then he knew this lug of a man better have a damn good excuse for his actions. The energy he had received from the shock of Merlin's tower was still coursing through him, like extra magic he couldn't control. He was itching to do something.

"Then do something," Zoso pushed.

He watched as the man swallow as he stared fearfully at him. He was used to that look now. It was the look he saw on the faces of many clients at their first encounter. It was the look they gave when they had heard of him but hadn't had the chance to see him in person. It was the look of terror.

"It's nothing," he explained quickly, the tempo of his explanation giving away just how much anxiety his heart was filled with.

"And what a joy it would be to crush that heart in the palm of your hand!" Zoso urged.

Yes…that would be satisfying.

"It was my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going. But, he says he's fine!"

Fine? Just fine? Not excellent?

"He hit him with a donkey and cart!" Zoso hissed. "The boy is lucky he wasn't trampled beneath hoof and wheel!"

"I'm fine, Papa. Really."

Fine? A scrape on the leg was "fine"?

"Hardly."

"Are you sure, Bae?" he questioned looking his boy over. He agreed with Zoso's diagnosis and oh, that damn magic! His body was tingling! It was rearing up within him, and he could feel it focus on the man before him.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"That word again!"

Fine. Looking at the man, he saw only fear, a man desperate to save his own skin, not an ounce of regret for what he'd done or that he'd nearly killed his boy. No sympathy.

"He's only sorry he got caught, if it was any of these other children…"

He'd probably have beat them for running into his cart.

"And we can do so much better than turning a heart to dust!"

He smiled as a use for the energy inside him suddenly came to mind. He was desperate to expel it, but one thing was for certain, this man would feel bad for what he'd done. He would regret it.

"He'll never do this again."

No, it wouldn't.

"Well, I suppose it won't happen again."

"Never!" Zoso agreed.

"No," the man assured him. "No!" the man flinched as he raised his hand. It was as if he had the urge to run, but that wouldn't help him.

"No one outruns the Dark One," Zoso laughed in his ear. "It would be like chasing a snail!"

Rumpelstiltskin smiled. A snail…now there was an idea. There was a trick he hadn't quite mastered yet.

"Practice does make perfect."

"What's that?" he questioned, pointing down at Baelfire's bloody knee.

"It's nothing…"

"It's nothing!" the man hollered as Zoso snickered.

"Fine or nothing…can't be both."

But it could be neither. "Don't…bother…" he urged rounding on the man and letting the magic in his skin expand and travel through his hands as he felt the voices grow with excitement just as Zoso did.

"End it!" Zoso encouraged. "Fix this! Put him in his place and teach them all a lesson! No one messes with your son, no one messes with the Dark One and comes away unscathed!"

The magic was gone, it left his body in a puff of purple smoke, and as his body stopped tingling, he watched as the big loud man grew smaller and quieter...and slower.

A snail.

Behind him Zoso laughed at his ingenious act. He ignored him and stepped closer.

No one escaped the Dark One, especially not a snail.

"No, Papa. No. Please, Papa, don't."

"Some lessons are hard taught for everyone," Zoso added.

"No, Papa! Papa!" But despite the boys screams, he heard a satisfying crunch as he crushed the snail beneath his boot in the sight of all who were watching. No one would dare to hurt his son again, that much was obvious as they all ran off in the opposite direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I titled this chapter getting comfortably worse because that's exactly what happens here. He's getting worse but he doesn't realize it because he's also growing comfortable with the change. When Rumple first took on this curse I don't think he would have ever done something like turn a guy into a snail just because, not without a significant amount of provocation from Zoso or Nimue. In this chapter Rumple is obviously getting worse, stepping a little further over that line of darkness, but he's more comfortable with it. Zoso is definitely there, adding commentary, but he's not pushing as hard as he would have had to in the beginning. And even then, it should feel more like it's commentary than encouraging. Rumple seems to have the idea to do something before Zoso jumps in there.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your comments. I hope you like what I did with the idea of the extra magic throughout this chapter. I kinda tried to use it as a motivator all on its own. He has this desire to use up the magic and get better and that sort of further encourages him. I wanted it to make him feel like he was high on it. Peace and Happy Reading!


	45. Don't Make Deals You Don't Understand

Though he could feel Baelfire was upset with him, his boy didn't try to fight him off as he grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and steered him back to the Hovel. His knee would need tending to, but fortunately, since the acquisition of his powers, he could heal him completely with only a wave of his hand — a gift from the Dark Ones, a perk of being the Dark One's son.

Inside the Hovel their maid was tidying up, folding blankets, dusting shelves, keeping their small house well maintained as she was well paid to do. It was a luxury that they'd had at the castle with Ava, a luxury he'd continued to indulge in once they arrived home only with a couple of extra safety measures he'd learned from the first mistake he'd made. For one, her name.

"Thank you, Onora. You can fetch our supper now, dearie," he instructed, wishing to have some time alone with Bae. He'd learned with the Sentry always to remember the names and faces of those he made deals with. Ava, on the other hand, had taught him to remember the names and faces of everyone he dealt with. He knew the town better today than he had in all his life living here. He studied each face, gathered names, knew their homes, their hobbies, places of employment…he had to do something other than sleep.

At his command, Onora nodded and hurried out of the house to fetch whatever she'd need. The nod, it was another mistake he'd fixed. Unlike her deaf husband, Onora could hear just fine, she could take orders, but she was unable to tell the others how to get on his good side, or whisper vile thoughts and stories into Bae's head, or do something silly like confess her love for him and offer a deal. It was the best choice he'd made since arriving back here.

"You killed that man," Bae commented the moment he returned to his side. Though his foot was on the seat as if he was examining it, he could see that he was actually casting a look at him out of the corner of his eye. It was distrusting, the way Bae constantly kept his eye on him. But it was nothing to him. He was the parent. He'd decide what was right and wrong.

"Well, you were hurt," he explained. "Speaking of which…" he sat down on the table and held out his hand, he pushed magic through it, using up the very last of the remaining energy from Merlin's Tower to prepare for the spell and heal the broken-

"No," Bae muttered suddenly pushing his hand away. "I don't want magic. It's just a scrape."

"This will heal it."

"So will this."

Bae walked away from him and over to the cabinet to pull out the box they kept the bandages in. It was crude and rudimentary. He couldn't see the point in suffering through it when he could just heal it in an instant? But as Bae handed him the box and sat down in one of their new chairs, he was suddenly overcome with a memory of mending a similar scrape when he'd been young. It was a rainy day, and they both had gone to town to sell some of his thread so Milah could sleep off the effects of her drunken late night. Bae had slipped on a stone. He'd scraped his knee, and he'd brought him home to heal him up.

"As you wish."

Rumpelstiltskin surrendered to his son's wishes by opening the box and fiddling with the contents. It had been a while since he'd done this, but if it was what Bae wanted, he could at least appreciate the nostalgia of it. Magic had truly made his life so much simpler. He could barely believe this was what people without magic had to suffer through to heal their wounds, and that was if they healed. If…

Bandage. A Bottle of select ingredients to clean the wound and keep it from festering.

Maybe…if he slipped just a bit of magic into that solution, just to help him heal faster…Bae would never know. And it would be safer than risking infection!

"You're different now," Bae suddenly commented from his seat. "You see it, don't you? You hurt people all the time."

Hurt people all the time? That was a little dramatic, wasn't it? He didn't see it that way. The way he saw things he was teaching lessons and sparing others as he'd just done outside! If he'd just let that man go on his way with no remorse for what he'd done then one day it wouldn't have been a knee that he scraped, he would allow his donkey to walk all over a young child and then that child would have died. It wasn't hurting people. It was merely taking advantage of their stupidity and desperation and helping those around them in the process. He was teaching lessons. And this conversation, it felt like one they shouldn't be having, like one that violated the arrangement they'd agreed to at the castle. Bae promised no complaining or questioning, and he supposed, technically he wasn't. But it felt like he was getting awfully close.

 _"Sounds like a broken deal to me,"_ Zoso muttered in his head.

"I created a truce in the Ogres War, Bae. I walked into the field of battle, and I made it stop. I led the children home. Surely, a man who's saved a thousand lives-"

"Is done!" he interrupted. "A man who's saved a thousand lives can be done with it. You can stop doing things."

Be done? Stop doing magic? Spinning gold and making deals, creating a name and persona for himself…no. Certainly not.

He uncorked the bottle of green liquid and pushed a bit of his magic into it as he poured a bit over the wound on Bae's leg.

"Ow!" he responded, mistaking the sting of magic for the bite of the liquid. Bae just didn't understand the call of the magic inside of him. He just didn't see the result of all the things he was doing. He'd learned that from the others in his head, many closest to the Dark One couldn't see it the way they did. But he would, someday, when he got through the Apprentice's protection and destroyed dark magic.

"I can't," he replied, moving away from him and retreating to the corner of the room that he sometimes kept his bed in. It was nothing now, a few shelves and a table with a basin on it, but if he ever felt the urge to sleep, which he never did, he could transform it back with a wave of his hand. Power. It made all this possible. And if he were to lose that power and go back to being a Spinner, remove the protection spells he'd cast on this house against Pan…it wasn't even a consideration. "I need more power so I can protect you."

"I wouldn't need protecting if you didn't have power!"

"Well, I can't get rid of it!" he reminded him.

"Have you tried?!"

"Tried?" This was arguing. This was another broken deal; the same one Bae broke over and over again.

"'Do this, and I'll be happy, Papa!'" Zoso mocked suddenly appearing and pacing in front of him. "'This is all I need, and I promise I'll be good.' This boy has never kept a promise in his life. He's more like his mother than even you accept!"

He cast his gaze to the corner where Zoso now sat watching and tried to ignore that last comment. He could handle his son. He just needed to remind him of their situation, the true cost of the deal he'd made with him.

From within his cloak, he pulled forth the dagger. In this village, it was always on him. He wouldn't be a fool and lose it…like others.

"If someone kills me with this, then they gain the power," he explained sitting down opposite him. "Now, you know that, Bae. Is that what you want?"

He could feel the Voices inside of him squirm as he took a chance and held it out for him, a show that he could grab it if he wanted. It was a calculated risk. He knew that Bae wouldn't take it after all that had passed between them since Beowulf.

"That's not what I want," he shouted predictably. "I just think there might be other ways to get rid of the power. Have you looked for-"

Suddenly the door opened, and Onora came back into the home. He looked up just in time to see her eyes glance at the two of them at the table sitting with the dagger, before she glanced away.

"You fool! You absolute ignorant fool!" Zoso raged as their conversation died! "Are you trying to fulfill your boy's wishes yourself! Are you trying to get yourself killed?! Hide that immediately!"

He swallowed as he hid the dagger back in his cloak, and the girl moved around them. She was a mute. She couldn't talk. But she, unlike her husband, wasn't deaf either. What, exactly, had she heard?

"Well, you look for other ways, Bae. But don't get your hopes up," he answered in dismissal as Onora moved around them with soup she must have cooked on a fire outside. Zoso had his eyes on her, watching her like a hawk. He tried waving her away as he grabbed bowls to ladle the food into, but he'd found his appetite was gone. His mind was bubbling with curiosity. And panic. What had she heard? How could he have been so careless?

"My question exactly!"

"Papa… If I find a way for you to get rid of the power… A way that doesn't kill you or hurt me…would you do it?"

"Shut the boy up!" Zoso growled as Onora left. "We don't know where she goes! She could be listening at the door right now!"

"It's not possible!" he insisted, just as desperate to end the conversation as Zoso was.

"If it was, would you do it? Don't you miss how it was?"

Zoso laughed even as his eyes remained trained on the door Onora had disappeared through. "Miss the weakness, the insults, miss the struggling…the boy has no idea what he's talking about!"

"Are you really that unhappy, Bae? I can conjure anything you desire," he commented, flourishing his hands just as he did with his clients. That was what they wanted when they met him. Act a certain way, talk with a particular accent, and he had them all easily convinced that he could give them what they want. But Bae, who stared back at him unimpressed, it appeared was not so easily convinced. "Name it. What do you want?"

"I want my father."

Next to him, he was suddenly aware of Zoso leaning down over his shoulder. "He already has you, Rumpelstiltskin, in ways he could never understand. If he didn't, I wouldn't still be here. Now make whatever deal you must to make this conversation go away so we can take care of this problem you have created!"

Onora. He'd made another mistake that needed rectifying. Soon.

"All I want is your happiness, Bae," he concluded, being as truthful as he could be. "If you find a way, I'll do it," he agreed settling into his soup. It was a safe deal to make. He knew there was no way his son would ever find the freedom from this curse that so many Dark Ones had searched for and failed to find.

"Good," Bae unexpectedly extended his hand to him, something he'd never done before for any of the other deals they'd made. It was such an adult thing to do that he paused taken aback by how fast his boy was growing up. He'd be a man soon. Maybe then, when he was older, he would truly understand what a child couldn't. He put his spoon down and shook his hand. "The deal is struck!"

"Struck," he agreed. But his mind was barely there. He was already considering what might have been going on outside the hovel with his latest problem.

"She needs dealt with," Zoso urged.

He agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Zoso in this section was an interesting experience. As the two become more and more bonded every day I wanted to show that we're to a point where Zoso is started to resemble him and his thoughts more than egging him on. There were times that I purposefully don't say who is talking because what Rumple is now thinking is exactly what Zoso is going to say. In the same way, I used him to display where Rumple's mind is. When Rumple is making his deal with Baelfire, Zoso clearly isn't paying attention. He's telling him to get on with the deal all the while he's looking at the door and what is Rumple really thinking about? What's going on outside that door! Long story short, if you start to get confused as to which is thinking or saying what, it's on purpose. They're both thinking it.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you RolfB for your comments! Hard to believe that we're so close to the end. It is hard to wish that you might enjoy these last few chapters, knowing what's going to happen to Rumple and Baelfire. I just hope you'll think that chapters like this and the rest are at the very least somewhat well done! Peace and Happy Reading!


	46. Motives for Murder

He had it all planned out. And to be honest, it was a genius plan. For days he had kept his eye on Onora, on the way she acted around him, the way her eyes had begun scanning the cloak for the dagger he kept beneath, the way she would suddenly grow very busy with some kind of indoor activity when he was home with Baelfire. She couldn't be trusted. He knew it, Zoso knew it, he had a feeling that even Onora knew it. His suspicions were correct. She'd heard something. And now, she was up to something. But this wasn't something that could be dealt with simply, with a flick of the wrist!

No, not if he meant to continue to stay here with Baelfire. He was smart. If he killed the girl here, he would be the first person authorities suspected. And that suspicion wouldn't have bothered him…if it wasn't for Bae. If it were just him, he could flee. If it were just him, he wouldn't have to. He could evade capture from the safety of his own home, turn them to frogs, make them forget! But Bae…

Bae wouldn't like being cooped up in the hovel again. And if they had to move permanently to the Dark Castle because everyone knew it was his father who had killed the girl that was hardly going to improve their situation.

No. It had to be done delicately. He had a plan. A good plan. He'd given Onora the day off, ensuring she'd be in her little home in the woods. Isolated, unable to scream, he'd divest himself of this problem, take something to make it look like a robbery gone wrong when her husband arrived home, and then he'd hire them a new maid when the word reached Baelfire that Onora wasn't coming to work because she was dead.

"Simple, easy to execute, what could go wrong?" Zoso wondered the night before as they waited for sunrise in his aunts' cabin.

What could go wrong? One, very important detail he hadn't considered.

"Where are you off to Papa?" Bae asked as he opened the door to leave the next morning.

Where was he off to?

"Just round to the meadow to fetch some wool!" he explained away, though he could hear the pitch in his voice change as told him. He prayed that Bae couldn't as he sat there at the breakfast table, taking in what he'd said. Fortunately, he really had run out of wool the night before, and had mentioned it to Baelfire…of course that meant he'd have to come back with wool to make his story look good.

 _"Not a bad alibi,"_ Zoso pointed out.

No. Not a bad alibi at all. And he was nearly about to cheerfully set foot outside when Bae suddenly said "I'll come too. It's been a long time since I went to the fields and saw the sheep. The fresh air will feel good after such a long Winter."

His fingers began to twitch at the door as he forced a smile. _"Put the boy to sleep you know you can! He'll ruin all the good plans we've made!"_

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay here? Play with your friends? This is just a simple errand," he offered.

"No, I'll come with you."

Tempted as he was to put Bae to sleep, he knew that unless he altered his memories too, having Bae wake up to find their maid was dead with no memory of needing sleep and his father wanting to leave wouldn't work in his favor. And as for altering his memory again…that potion had long since been used up.

"As you wish."

He held the door open for Bae, and his mind began to race as they walked through the town and into the woods, a decision Bae no longer questioned because he too hated the looks his father got as they through the populated village square.

_"Now what are you going to do…have him play witness?!"_

If yelling at the voices worked on any level, he'd have screamed at Zoso that he was trying to work on it right then and there. But as it was, it didn't work. And all screaming would serve to do was frighten Baelfire!

_"Well, you better think of something fast! This is your stop!"_

Indeed, they'd arrived at the point in the road where he had to climb the hill to get to Onora's little cabin. But Zoso obviously hadn't seen what he did. He didn't have to think of anything. He was saved! For there, just up ahead, were children; young boys enjoying the good weather and playing. They each held a long stick in their hand were clanging them together as if they were swords and staffs. They were living out their dreams of someday being grand knights or heroes. It was precisely the kind of thing he would have caught Bae doing before the threat of the Ogre War. And it was just the thing he needed now.

"Hey, why don't you join in, Bae?" he suggested as they came to a stop on the edge of the hill. "I have some business nearby that would bore you."

"Alright," Bae agreed almost nervously.

_Get on with it!_

That handled, he gave his son an encouraging pat on the back and began his trek up the hill.

The girl lived in a simple cabin similar to the hovel, the only difference was that the loft stretched above from wall to wall instead of just rimming the outer edges of the wall. Not surprising. He knew that her husband worked as some kind of builder or woodworker. He should have spent his time on a fence or a sturdier door, rather than the inside. Unprotected, unguarded, it was all too easy for him to sneak into the cabin undetected and-

His heart stilled as he looked around, and his eyes automatically were drawn to a group of drawings on scraps of paper. Not just any drawings. It was the dagger.

Two…three…five! Five sketches of the dagger! Detailed, but missing one essential piece, as a small little note and arrow on the final one pointed out for him. "Etching on the front, potentially the name of Rumpelstiltskin."

He could have smiled. His name, his true name, was spelled wrong. He always knew that little choice was bound to come in handy one day! And here, if the ingredients listed at the top were for what he assumed they were for, it had proven correct. It was a potion to find lost treasure. She was going to search for the dagger. And now he felt no guilt in what came next…

He heard footsteps on the stairs. The old him would have scattered. He would have hastily put the drawings down and practically run for the front door, but now he stood here, firmly holding his ground, ready to confront the spy in his midst.

She wasn't expecting him, that much he was sure. Who she'd prepared that radiant smile for he wasn't sure but if he had to guess it would have been her husband. The second she lay eyes on him though, it faded from her face. The second she lay eyes on the papers in his hands, her eyes filled with tears.

"Someone's been putting their nose where it doesn't belong, haven't we, Dearie!"

She opened her mouth as if to gasp and let herself fall away in an effort to run, but he was too quick and in a cloud of smoke appeared on the other side of her.

"Ah. Ah. Ah," he cried, holding out his hand to wrap invisible fingers around her throat. He had her. Now she could struggle all she wanted, but there was no getting away from him. He just had to know how far this had gone.

"Who have you shared these with?"

Her skin paled as she clawed at her own neck and managed to shake her head "no". Her eyes began to water, staining her cheeks and dripping down her chin. He didn't care. She was lying.

"Really?! No one at all?!"

Again, she shook her head, "no."

"I find that hard to believe considering they're laying about your home so carelessly. What exactly did you tell your husband?"

Her eyes widened. It was all the recognition that he needed. She'd told him.

"A very unwise decision, Dearie."

She let out a small sigh and then, quickly, her fingers began to move, her hands flashing rapidly before him. He had a lot of languages in his head, more than he'd ever known could exist, but that wasn't one of them. He squeezed his hand tighter, and she stopped, her air suddenly cut off as her pale cheeks began to turn blue.

"Who would he tell?"

She shook her head sadly as she cried.

Of course, no one! That was his mistake!

"Who would he write it down for?"

She shook her head again and opened her mouth as he squeezed tighter. _Can't write,_ she mouthed, making more motions with her fingers. _Please._

She was telling the truth. That much he could identify quickly by her lack of fight. There was no need to fight if she was telling the truth. She was trying to save him. It was too later for them both.

With a simple motion of his hand, he heard a loud crack and Onora's body went limp. He lowered his hand, and her body fell to the floor in a heap, completely motionless.

_One down, one to go!_

Zoso had barely put the thought into his head when the door to their cabin opened again, and it happened much the same way it had before. He was a big man with red hair, dressed warmly with an ax over his shoulder. He was smiling until he took in the sight before him. Quietly, his eyes scanned the scene. They roamed over him, then down to the body before him then up to him again.

Then he charged. The ax clunked to the ground, and he crossed the room to get to him in only a few steps, his face nearly as red as his hair. It was nothing but a soldier's instinct, not magic, that saved him. He pulled the dagger from his cloak and thrust it deep into the man's gut. He let out a cry, just a small one, like a man who had never know how to use the voice he had, then braced himself as the weight in his arms doubled, then tripled. Blood poured down the dagger and over the fingers, it dripped onto the floor as he tossed the dead man's body aside.

_Two for one! Easier than we thought._

Across the room, by the fireplace, there was a bucket of water. He dipped the dagger into it. All it took was a few swishes to clean the blade of blood. A couple more and his hands were clean. As he stared between the bodies and the drawings on the desk, he felt a weight fall from his shoulders. The crisis had been averted. He was confident in what Onora had told him about her husband's inability to write. And even if he wasn't, their inability to easily communicate with anyone else was enough to satisfy him. Beyond him, he was certain that Onora had no one else to speak with besides her husband. And he was certain that her husband was someone who worked on his own. Even if they could have communicated, there was no one to communicate with. But just in case…

He grabbed the drawings off the desk, and after looking over them once more, he tossed them into the fire and watched as they quickly burned to ash, leaving no traces of his secret behind. Finally, from the loft, he took the little jewelry that she had along with the coins and golden thread he'd paid her in.

Authorities would find the pair of them eventually, if it were just her he would be their main suspect, with both of them dead and the jewelry missing it would easily be mistaken for a random burglary. Why would anyone believe the Dark One had killed her for gold he could easily spin at home?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought long and hard about how I wanted this to go down. Truly, I did. Make Onora innocent or make her guilty? Which would be better? It wasn't until I was writing this chapter that I decided to have him find the drawings and have him come to the conclusion that she was guilty of exactly what he was afraid of. Why? Well, simple enough. I do feel like the Rumple that we know is overly cautious. I do think that he might even be considered paranoid. And yes, we could look to the other Dark Ones to give that paranoia to him but then I realized this is a guy who has a couple hundred years ahead of him. There will be plenty of time for him to suspect something that isn't true. But now, in the beginning, we really had to develop that paranoia and cautious behavior. It had to come from somewhere. So, I made the decision to make Onora be exactly what he thought she was. Good decision? Bad decision? It's in your hands now.
> 
> Thank you RolfB for your review on the last chapter. I'm happy that for the most part this fiction has been well received. Only four more chapters until the end. Are you ready for it? On to the next...Peace and Happy Reading!


	47. At a Crossroads

Dagger tucked away, jewelry carefully, and magically, transported back to his aunt's house, outside of the house and down the hill to collect Bae he went. If he was honest, he felt great and reassured, but better yet, he felt prepared. Two maids. Two maids hired. Two maids who had betrayed him. He'd learned, of course. He'd learned how to protect himself and become a better Dark One with every deal! But he was beginning to wonder if having anyone close to his son was safe, if anyone being close to him was safe? When had it ever ended well for him?

_The life of a Dark One is a lonely road, indeed. There is no other path._

Nimue. A rare egg of insight, but unnecessary. He was already beginning to sense what she'd said. After all, if being the Dark One was so great, wouldn't they be called the Light One?

He paused as he moved down the hill, suddenly struck by an unexpected sight. Baelfire was there at the bottom of the hill. The boys he'd seen earlier had migrated leaving him behind, but his boy wasn't alone. There, sitting on a log before him was a very familiar face, even if he could only see the back of her head and part of her profile. Morraine. The girl he'd always suspected Bae had a crush on. He watched with pride as the two sat close together, their heads bowed even closer together, talking about something or other, before she flinched.

It was him. He'd shifted his weight and snapped a twig that the girl had heard. Well, she hadn't flinched, exactly. At the stray noise, she'd turned, got a quick glance at him, then quickly said something he couldn't make out and departed, leaving Bae to sit there and watch her go as he sat alone.

She'd run.

But not from Bae. She'd run from him. And he couldn't help but feel a twinge of anger at her for being so weak of heart as she sought to impress his son. Was she toying with his son's affections? After all that he'd done to rescue her from the Ogre Wars? He was what was going to chase Bae away?

"Your friend didn't want to say 'hello?'" he questioned when he finally made it down the hill, and Baelfire made his way over to him.

"You frighten them."

And that was what he'd feared would happen if they came back, that in Bae's search to renew his friendships, the stigma of the curse would get to them. That was all silly though. What had he ever done to the children but save them from a terrible war?

"What is there to be frightened of, Bae? They'll get over that in time."

But Baelfire looked doubtful at such a suggestion and cast his eyes down to the ground…then snapped his eyes right back up.

"You have stains on your boots."

He looked down at his boots, and sure enough, there was clearly a dark red, nearly brown colored liquid pouring down from his knee to the sole. It was the leg he'd thrust forward to support Onora's husband on. And there was no hiding that it was blood.

"Oh, yes, that…" he hadn't planned on Baelfire discovering what his "business" was. In fact, he'd decided that he was going to collect Bae and go out to the meadow just as he'd said they would, to retrieve wool he could spin for the rest of the day as he contemplated whether or not it was worth it to hire another maid. He hadn't thought about what to tell him if he asked about his business. Or what he should say if Baelfire discovered bloodstains on his boots.

But…it shouldn't be a terrible shock!

Bae was a reasonable person. He'd known not to talk about the dagger in another's presence and of course neither of them had meant for something like this to happen but then…accidents happened all the time! He should just tell him. At some point, it was going to come out. He may as well know now.

"Uh…we need a new maid."

He could see, he watched as it took only a second for Baelfire to put together the riddle of his words. His eyes flashed from him to the hill, and then-

"Gods, no!" he cried.

"She heard us talking about the knife," he pointed out.

"She was mute! She couldn't tell anyone!"

It seemed quite contrary to him if the drawings were any indication. She'd been communicating with her husband, trying to figure out the magic of the dagger and potentially trying to find where it was hidden and take him under her power.

"Even mutes can draw a picture," he pointed out in a silly voice as he patted Bae on his shoulder and moved around him so that he could process his thoughts on the way back.

He wasn't the only one that had a lesson to learn here. Bae did as well. Now he'd learned, there was no such thing as a safe third party in this situation. It was he and his son, and no one else. Perhaps that was the answer. No maid, especially in that castle, meant more housework and less magical work. But it also meant peace of mind. No worries about accidental slips of the tongue. No concerns about overheard conversations. No need to pay a woman just for a bit of ease and comfort that, frankly, he could probably do with a wave of his hand. Perhaps, if he enchanted some of the fireplaces in the castle and maybe a broom or two-

"Papa!" Behind him, Baelfire was suddenly moving. When he looked back, it appeared that he hadn't moved from the place at the bottom of the hill but now was charging toward him. "Papa, Morraine said some of the other children are meeting in the forest tonight to play a game of Night Tag, and she invited me. I want to go."

At first, he smiled. His first instinct was to mention that he knew his friends eventually would come around! But he couldn't say that. No sooner had he had those feelings and instincts did he realize precisely what Bae was asking of him. Night Tag was a popular game among children this time of year. The thrill of finding someone and then running as fast as possible back to the base lest you be tagged and made to hide on your own in the forest mixed perfectly with the chilly weather. The feeling of being hot and cold lingering over the body as the heart pounded and breath formed in a white fog, it was a unique sensation.

But it also meant a late night in the forest. It meant potentially hiding in that forest. Alone. It meant running when he couldn't see and if Baelfire hurt himself…would his friends come for him?

"I don't know Bae, there's a lot of things that could happen," he sighed, thinking it over. "Perhaps if I went with you-"

"Papa, you scare them!"

"Isn't that the purpose of night tag?"

"No!" he insisted. "No one wants to be scared like that. Please, Papa, it'll only be for a little while! You can't hold my hand forever. And I just want to have my friends back, isn't that the reason we came home?"

Yes, among other reasons…but he was also aware of all the reasons they'd left! There were certain dangers, individuals who had made it evident that they would take Bae if given the opportunity. The house was protected, guarded with the most potent charms he could craft! That house would still be standing just as it was millennia from now because of those charms. But out in the woods…

"Things won't be like they were with Pan, Papa," Bae suddenly interjected, letting him know that his fears were not unfounded. He'd thought of it too. "Morraine is going, and Pan only wanted boys, I don't know why, but if you do maybe you could tell me…"

There it was again. That pressure to tell him about Pan and who he was. He couldn't do that. Not yet. Bae was so close to becoming a man, but he wasn't prepared to hear about Pan yet. There was no way he could tell him. Which left him with two choices. One, deny him the knowledge of Pan, tell him he couldn't go, and spend the evening together in the hovel feeling Baelfire's anger seethe in the loft while he worked at the wheel. Or, deny him the knowledge of Pan, but…

"Go have fun tonight, Bae," he agreed, probably against what was better judgment. "But try to be home before midnight, so I don't have to go looking for you."

Baelfire smiled. "Absolutely Papa."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things may change time and time again but there are just some things that will always stay the same. One of those things is the way kids know how to play their parents. I really felt like it was important to show that even though Rumple is the Dark One and he is improving in that department, he's also a father. And it's a fact that ever since the dawn of time children have known how to play their parents to get what they want. Baelfire's mention of Pan at the end...totally a play. He knows his father isn't going to talk about Pan, and he knows that if he brings it up he just might feel guilty enough about it to let him go. I kind of see it as a funny thing. The Dark One still has a parent's weakness.
> 
> Thank you, dear RolfB and MissBansheeAbby, for your comments on the last chapter. As for the last three chapters...we've all seen this episode, we all know that Baelfire isn't going to play tag, right? We won't see that scene, since it's Baelfire's, but this is the night that Bae goes to talk to the Blue Fairy. An when he comes back, well...head on over to the next chapter for the beginning of the end! Peace and Happy Reading!


	48. Part Father, Part Dark One

Part of being a father meant embracing worry. But he had to admit, worrying was the part about being a father he hated the most. As soon as the sun had gone down, Bae had left the Hovel. He'd left him to go into the woods and play a game with his friends. Unprotected. Unguarded. He was no better than a free-roaming version of Onora's cabin.

It took everything he had not to follow after that boy. He could do it. He knew that he could. It would be simple even now! He'd gotten very good at following the trail of his bloodline if concentrated. And he was the Dark One. He could hide in shadow well enough. All it would take was a little concentration, a comfortable spot behind a tree or maybe in the branches of one, and he could watch Bae to his heart's delight! Either he'd find him having a good time with his friends and know that bringing him back here was a success! Or he'd find the opposite. And in that case, he didn't know what he'd do to those children or their families.

Oh, part of him wanted to follow after him so bad it hurt, but at Zoso's behest, he remained home.

"Don't you have better things to do than chase after the boy?" Zoso questioned as he went to check the window again. It wasn't yet midnight. In fact, it wasn't even close. But still, he couldn't help but get up and check every few minutes, anticipating Bae's return anxiously.

"Like what?"

"Like look into a new maid," he growled. "There is far too much to do if you're going to keep up with this plan of yours."

"It's too much of a risk to have anyone close to me."

"Only if you don't clean up your mess. One mess every other month, or several every day…it's your choice."

"Exactly," he snapped. "My choice, not yours. I'll be the one that decides what is too much of a risk from now on. And, as long as you all inhabit my head, you'll respect those decisions."

Zoso smirked. "You grow stronger every day Rumpelstiltskin. But don't forget, there is still something holding you back."

He could have argued, but he knew that Zoso was right. Something was holding him back from embracing his power the way others had, and he could feel the frustration of the Voices because of it. But he'd come to find that not only did he need that restraint, but he also couldn't lose it. Right now, the two were one and the same. As long as Bae was around, he was always going to be held back. The moment he wasn't restrained and truly let himself turn into what Zoso had been, Bae would leave him. There was no doubt about that. As much as he longed to rid himself of the voices in his head, and the ghosts that haunted him, he would live with them, because the alternative was living without Baelfire, and that wasn't an option.

Thoughts running through his head, fingers itching, he sat down at the Saxony Wheel with a bit of wool, intending to spin golden thread, but as his foot pumped the pedal and the wheel began to whirl, oddly enough what came out wasn't gold, just thread. Normal, average, thread. He didn't stop. He watched the wheel spin before him, and felt his body mold into the perfect rhythm he'd discovered when he was just a boy, and his mind went to that place, the safe place. The place that not even Zoso had permission to go. The Voices faded. His worry diminished, for a moment, he almost felt like his old self again.

"Papa!"

He pretended not to exhale, tried hard not to make it obvious how relieved he was that Baelfire had finally come home. But he hadn't known, not until that second, that his ultimate fear hadn't been that Baelfire would be hurt or left injured in the woods by those who called him friend, or even that he'd be taken by the shadow, but rather he'd been fearful that Baelfire wouldn't come back of his own choice. He'd been afraid he'd run off again. Having him walk through the door meant he was home again. He'd returned. And hearing him breathless as he was, as he should be after a game of Night Tag…perhaps he was making friends again.

"Papa…I found it," Bae muttered quickly, taking a seat across from him. He was thankful for the wheel that separated them. If it wasn't there, he was likely to reach right out and swallow his son up in a tight hug. "I-I found a way for things to be like they were. I want you to come with me. I can make things right."

"What's that? What's he mean?" Zoso questioned with a shake of what might have been fear in his voice.

Suddenly he was once again thankful for the wheel, for the way his body could make the motions without having to think or process what he was doing. If he didn't have that kind of steadiness, he would have missed a beat and Bae might have noticed how distracted he'd finally become, how he'd been summoned away from peaceful relieved thoughts with just a suggestion. He knew, without having to ask, exactly what Bae was talking about. How interesting that the other's hadn't. He'd been making deals, and they'd been worrying over Onora too much to focus on Baelfire. But now that he had the memory playing back through his head, they watched in horror with him. They knew too.

"What could he possibly have found?!" Zoso demanded.

"Have you heard of the Reul Ghorm?"

From within the depths of his mind, there was an undeniable hissing sound as more voices he'd ever heard before chattered away in his mind.

"The blue bug?! What's she got to do with this?! What have you done? I told you to fix things, not make them worse!" Zoso screamed, looking between the pair of them.

His sentiments matched his own. What had he done?

"The Blue Star. The Blue Fairy?" That wicked old hag? The one who had ordered such a critical truth be kept from him all his life! If not for the Red Fairy's sense of justice her commands would have stood and he still wouldn't have any idea-

"Enough of that! Fix this now!" Zoso screamed.

"Oh, son," he sighed as the wheel came to a stop. "Please tell me you didn't…fairy magic doesn't mix well with what I am." Fairy magic didn't mix well with anything, not in the long run. Liars. All of them. If Bae had summoned a fairy to solve this problem-

"Stop thinking such things!" Zoso roared. "Light magic is no cure for what we are! It's no good for anyone!"

"But you promised."

"Promised?!" Zoso complained, but the images flashed before his eyes before he could guard them. Now they knew everything. At the time it had been a good idea, now, in hindsight, he could see the flaw. "The flaw? You made a deal?! You shook hands on it! What have you done, you fool!"

"She can help us," Bae urged. "To take us to a place without magic."

"An inconceivable hell!" Zoso spat.

"A place without magic?" he argued aloud. The very thought of such a place made his skin crawl. He had to stand up and begin to pace to make it stop and disperse the energy. Even if such a place truly existed, he couldn't fathom why he'd want to go there. "I'd be powerless. Weak."

"Like everyone else. It wouldn't matter," Bae dismissed. "We'd be happy."

"We could be happy here."

"We've had this conversation before…" Zoso pointed out. "We told you he was too much like his mother!"

"Father, please," Bae pressed on, relentless. "You're getting worse. And you promised. This can work. It can." Bae stood, he rose to his full height, a height that no longer required him to look down at him like he was a child but a man.

"You see a man…but I hear the whining of a child."

"You made a deal with me. Are you backing out?"

No, of course not but…images flashed through his mind, pictures he hadn't thought about in over a year. On instinct he turned toward the place his bed used to be, the location he'd once hid his cane in before moving it to the Dark Castle and forgetting it. It used to be he always knew where that thing was, but now it was lovely to forget and-

Suddenly he found himself face to face not with his cane or his bed or even the memory of it, but rather Zoso. There was a burning fire in his eyes, anger…and a reminder. There was a flash of determination and power, forceful and overwhelming that made the images of the cane vanish. It wasn't going to happen. It just wasn't. Plain and simple. But as for Bae's accusation…

That flare of fire returned to Zoso's eyes. "The Dark One back out of a deal?"

 _Never_.

He turned his back on Zoso and looked over at his son. His eyes matched the fiery desperation of Zoso's for but an entirely different reason. "No."

"Then let's go, Papa!" he urged, rushing to get his cloak for him.

"Now?" he questioned as blood rushed through his body once more. So soon?

"Fix this now!"

"But…we should plan Bae. As we did before the Ogre War."

"No, Papa. You are getting worse! We can't spare another day! Let's go now! We can start over fresh, Papa, isn't that the point?"

"Yes, yes of course," he breathed as he took the cloak from Baelfire and followed him to the door. How was he going to fix this with so little time? "Whatever you say…after you…" He held the door open for his boy, and Bae left without looking back. That easy. Was it really that easy for him to just pick up and leave the place he'd called home his entire life and never look back? He preferred the castle to the hovel any day, but still…

Zoso stared at him by the door, looking around as if he was seeing it all of it for the last time. The man's gaze was deep and angry, and enough to terrify a grown man, even if he was the Dark One. But he felt numb, incapable of really processing anything. Leave. Go to a World Without Magic. A world where he'd hobble around on a cane again for the rest of his life and live as a beggar without a wheel.

"Stop panicking!" Zoso insisted. "You are the Dark One! And the boy's father! You had best figure out a way to talk yourself out of this Rumpelstiltskin, and quickly too!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! The last three chapters! And these three chapters were some of the hardest to write in all of this fiction because it's not only the apex of the fiction, but these chapters are the apex of Rumple's life and arguably the series. Everything happens only because of this one incident. I wanted to do it justice.
> 
> Thank you, RolfB for your comments! I'm looking forward to hearing what you think about these last three chapters. I spent a lot of time writing them and I'm crossing my fingers that I got them just right for you! Peace and Happy Reading!


	49. Gone With the Wind

His mind was racing, they'd been walking for what felt like an eternity. And worse, they were walking to nowhere. He'd lived in this place all his life, and he knew that what splayed out before him for miles ahead was nothing but forest and mountain and wasteland. It was a three-day journey to the nearest village if they kept going in this direction. And he couldn't for the life of him understand why they were doing this? Baelfire intended to get to another world by walking there? To a world with no magic? The very thought seemed absurd and terrifying. It was like suggesting they got to a world without a sun, or a world without water? How did a world sustain itself without magic? It just didn't seem possible.

_Oh, it's possible Rumpelstiltskin!_

_We have dealt with this problem before as you are dealing with it now._

_As you better deal with it, for in the World Without Magic you are nothing but a weak old fool who can't walk and that cane of yours will be worlds away and unreachable forever!_

Zoso was angry. All the voices were. He couldn't hear Nimue among them, but he could feel her. He could feel her upset in the way he'd always been able to feel Milah's upset even when she said nothing to him about it. Nimue was not happy with him over this, not happy at all. But if she thought for one second that he was pleased about this, she was crazy. He wasn't pleased. He was terrified. He hadn't felt fear like this since he'd been ordered to go into battle and he'd been forced to break his leg. He wasn't ready to go back to being nothing. After a year of feeling untouchable, that fear was what scared him most of all.

_So come up with something to do about it instead of just stumbling along! You don't like the boy's plan? Then change it!_

"Where are we going, boy? What kind of world is this we're going to? What kind of world is without magic?" he questioned for the first time since they'd left the hovel. He had to do something, anything to change his mind, even if he had to scare Bae into doing it! But Baelfire didn't miss a step he charged onward with the fierce determination of the soldier he'd never been. Then all at once, turned around.

"A better one," he answered uncurling his fist to show him what lay inside.

And there it was. There was the answer, a reminder of an answer he'd once had long ago too-an answer that had failed him. For there in his son's fingers, he saw the unmistakable shape of a bean. A clear, magic bean. His heart stopped. He felt nothing coming from his chest as he looked at it and suddenly he realized that Baelfire truly was capable of making all this come true, he was capable of taking them to another world without realizing…

He'd been on his end of one of those beans before, and it only held destruction for the family he'd known! For him! Bae should have known that! But he'd never told him tales of his past. He'd never told him where he came from, or who Pan really was, or how he'd come to be! He realized his mistake too late.

Before he could protest or argue, Bae threw the bean at the ground. There was a pause, just long enough to give him false hope that perhaps nothing would happen, that the pod was old and they could go home. But then just as it had when he was a child, a swirling vortex of green opened up before him, loud and strong and just as intimidating as it had been when he was a child. It looked no different now than it had then! Only now there was no father to hold his hand and reassure him all was going to be well. He was the father now, and he had no confidence about the future at all.

"And what if that happens all over again, Rumpelstiltskin?" Zoso hissed in his ear, suddenly standing at his back. "You don't know where that thing will take you, the boy got it from a Fairy, and we both know how reliable they are!"

What if the Blue Fairy had lied to Bae? What if this didn't take them to some fairy tale world without magic as Bae hoped but back to Neverland? Back to Pan? What if this was all a trick to get his boy?! To destroy him?!

He grabbed hold of Baelfire and drew him backward away from the peril as the world around him shook, and the sound of rushing water and crashing waves filled his ears. They couldn't do this! He couldn't!

"My gods, boy! It's like a tornado!" he cried.

"We have to go through it!"

"No, no! I don't think I can!" He couldn't do this! Not again!

"We must!" Bae screamed back easily. "It's the only way!"

"The only way?!" Zoso questioned.

Bae reached for his hand and began to pull him forward; he was so afraid he was easy to drag along. And Zoso was having none of it.

"What's the matter with you?! You are behaving as no more than a little child! What if it's a trick?! What if it's a trick of Pan and it sends you to Neverland, right to your father?! What if that Blue Fairy was a lie, under the Shadow's influence, under Pan's? And what if it's not? Best case scenario, you'll be weak again! A cripple! Lame! It'll be back to spinning in no more than a hovel trying desperately to put food on the table! Is that really what you want? Is that really how you want to live again!"

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" he exclaimed, pulled Bae back from the brink. "It's a trick! It'll tear us apart!"

"It's not! It'll be okay! I promise!" There was too much going on to make sense of what happened. There was the feeling of Bae tugging on his hand, pulling him toward the vortex, there was the sound of wind, the crashing of trees and branches and suddenly his body lurched forward as Bae lost his footing. "Papa!" he cried. Instinct forced him to hold tighter to his son's hand.

"You should never have made this deal! It's the kind of deal a weak man would make! You should know you made it with your father long ago and look how that turned out! This is nothing but setting the clock back! History will repeat itself. There is no promise that you and your boy would be happier anywhere beyond here!"

He tried to ignore Zoso who stood calmly beside him, unaffected by the wind and the peril. He looked only to the face of his boy clinging to him for dear life…or was he?

"We have to go through! What are you doing?" He was securing them both. He removed the dagger from its hiding place and thrust it into the ground, firmly anchoring himself in this realm! In their world! It allowed him to pull the pair of them up and away from the portal that seemed desperate to swallow them both! "Papa! It won't stay open long! Let go!"

"Don't you dare!"

"I can't! I can't!" he realized, with agonizing fear that he couldn't hold both of them. Bae wasn't fighting against the portal as he was, and his hand didn't hold as tight to his own. He was slipping. He was letting it happen! He couldn't! But he did. Bae released his hand, and it was only his quick action that he caught him by the sleeve. If he held on like this, he wasn't likely to be able to hold both Bae and the dagger! If Bae didn't help him-

"Papa, please! It's the only way we can be together!"

His hand slipped a little more as the vortex pulled the fabric of Bae's sleeve further out f his reach. His hand hurt from how tight he was holding on to it. But his hold on the dagger was relentless, comfortable and comforting.

"There's only one way this will end now," Zoso predicted.

"No, Bae! I can't!" he cried.

And he meant it, his fingers felt glued to that dagger. It was impossible to draw them off. It was impossible to know what lay beyond that green pool!

"Papa, please!"

"He shouldn't ask so much of you! This is your home; this is where you belong, don't let him convince you otherwise!"

Zoso was right! Leaving here was inconceivable! Any life beyond this was no life at all!

"I can't!"

"You coward!" Bae suddenly roared. "You promised! Don't break our deal!"

"But you must! Anything for the child's happiness, if this is what makes him happy then you are fulfilling your deal! You just won't be going with him!"

"I have to!"

"It's the only way!

"Papa!"

But as Bae screamed, there was a gust of wind that blew up from the portal and pulled. By instinct alone, he let go of Bae's sleeve and wrapped his other hand securely around the hilt of the dagger, embedded safely in the earth. He turned his eyes away and clung there to the side of the ridge, shielding himself safely from the portal.

And then there was nothing. The pull began to lessen enough that he could look down into the abyss. The green began to shrink. The wind died. The portal was gone along with the danger and fear it had presented to him and all at once he was aware of a brand new sensation, one he'd never had at least where Baelfire was concerned.

Regret.

For not only was the portal gone, but so was Bae.

At the bottom of the hole, there was nothing but dirt.

His son was missing.

"Bae? Bae!" he shouted, cried as loud as he could, hoping this was like when he was younger, and he'd appear behind a tree or rise out of the dirt he was buried beneath. But there was nothing but the sound of nocturnal animals in the distance. He reached through his magical connection, trying to sense his own blood just as he had when he'd been among the boys at Pan's camp. But the feeling of being tied to another was gone.

Gone.

Worlds away.

"No, no, no, no, no," he left the dagger behind on the side of the crater and dove for the bottom, where the entrance to the portal had been. If even a bit of it remained…

"No, no, Bae. I'm sorry, Bae!" he began to dig, to claw that the dirt, to pull it up with his bare hands desperate to find something! Anything! Any small flash of green that he might use to join Bae wherever he was! To make sure he was safe! What a coward he'd been! What an awful coward!

"I want to come with you! I want to come with you, Bae! I want to come with you! Bae! Bae! Bae!"

But there was nothing but quiet. Nothing but dirt. Nothing in his heart but regret! Regret and…

Anger…

As he cast his eyes up and out of the crater, one sight met those eyes that sparked the rage he felt and fanned it into a flame that burned all other emotion out of him.

"You…you did this?! You took what was mine!" he charged out of the hole and toward Zoso, but the ghost disappeared before he could tackle him. He turned, and the demon was behind him. "You took my son away from me! If it wasn't for you-"

"Did I?! If it weren't for me, you'd have made the exact same mistake! Tell me Rumpelstiltskin, was I the one who put the idea in the boy's head? Was I the one who gave him the beans and offered you such a choice? Or was it another, a far more sinister creature disguised as light and hope who had lied and betrayed to you all your life?"

Suddenly the tides turned as he realized. It wasn't Zoso. Zoso had been the voice of reason, the voice of logic throughout all of this, warning him about where that portal led. The true culprit, the one who had stolen his son away, was the one who had talked him into this plan in the first place and with any luck could, and would, get him back for him.

"Reul Ghorm…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for Baelfire until we reach a season two fiction. Sometimes it amazes me just how big his role is despite how little he actually appears. If I had to name one difficult thing about writing these fictions, it would be that. Trying to fill in the big gaps of months and in the case of the first fiction, years, when there wasn't much to go on, was a special kind of task.
> 
> Many thank yous to RolfB for your consistent comments and for tuning in every day for the newest chapter! Up next is the last chapter and...I don't know, it's kind of an odd way of thinking, but I think of the last chapter really as a finale, not only for this fiction but even, in a way, for the previous fiction. These first two fictions, even though they represent two different times in Rumple's life, two different variations of Rumple, I feel like so much of who Rumple is can be found in what comes after the last chapter. So...I hope you'll like it. And more than that, I hope you'll like what comes next! Peace and Happy Reading!


	50. The Beginning of Another Life

With every second the trail grew colder. With every minute, he became more and more aware of just how far he was from his son. With every heartbeat, his brain realized just how important it was to follow after him quickly. Bae could be anywhere in the Realms and anywhere in whatever world he was in! There wasn't a second to waste. He'd been a coward, but he was brave now. He'd do whatever it took to get back to his son! Anything! If it meant diving into a portal to the unknown or calling upon the one creature that all Dark One's hated then so be it.

He'd never encountered the Blue Devil before, only heard about her from the Red Fairy who'd told him about his mother and confessed it was by her commands no one ever told him about her. After that, he'd never had any interest in knowing the beast. But now he needed her. She owed him! If she'd given Baelfire the bean, then she'd have access to another one! He could follow after his boy and fix this, tell him how sorry he was, even if it meant becoming lame again in the process.

The Fairy Realm wasn't one any Dark One had ever been to, but more than a few of the voices inside of him had a reason to call on the Mother Fairy at some point in their life. And that meant he knew just how to summon her. A field would be best, a place he could see the clear night sky, but in this wood of trees, all he could get was a brief glimpse between the branches. He walked away from the site of the portal, mentally noting where it was so he could follow after once he had his bean and looked high in the sky searching for a patch of sky. When he finally found one it was small, he had to admit to that, but it was just enough that his voice would carry and she'd hear him.

"Reul Ghorm!"

"This is a mistake!" Zoso squealed. But he paid the man no heed.

Zoso had been blabbering on about what he should do and how she should do it since Bae left, but despite what he'd told him about the Blue Fairy, despite how true it might have been that the fault lay with her, he couldn't help but blame Zoso for getting into his head in the first place and demanding he listen to him, instead of the instinct he had as a father.

"Show yourself!" he cried into the blackness.

Nothing.

He looked and searched the skies before him, but there was nothing he could see. However, there was something he could feel. Magic. Behind him.

He hadn't seen a sight like this since he was a boy, since his own fairy godmother saved him and in a flash, she'd become precisely what the Blue Fairy was now. Small, barely the size of his hand, and surrounded by a bluish glow. Her wings flapped lazily through the air as she floated before him, unafraid, her expression disappointed and unyielding.

Well, how dare she? How dare she be disappointed in him when she had planted the seed that led them to this very place!

"How do I follow him?" he demanded without explanation. She knew who he was. There wasn't an explanation needed!

"You had the way, you didn't take it!" she chastised. "And there are no more magic beans."

"That's a lie."

She shook her head, the expression on her face nothing but irritation and hostility. "We don't do that."

"A lie!" he insisted. All fairies were wicked creatures, but this one especially, she'd had him lied to his entire life by simply withholding the truth.

"You will never make it to that world."

Another lie, but not one that she could have identified. It was simply a lie because she lacked belief and didn't know the extent of his desire. No one told him no! No one kept him from his son! He was the Dark One. Magic Beans or not he'd make it just to spite her.

"Oh, I'll find a way. There must be other paths. A realm jumper?"

She rolled her eyes.

"A time turner?"

"No."

"A mage?"

"There is no-"

"A curse?"

"No."

"Did you see what I saw?" Zoso whispered in his ear.

Yes.

Yes, he had seen the same thing Zoso had, it was small, a pause that was barely a fraction of a second. It was a hesitation. And it was a very distinct trademark of a lie.

"Ah! So, it is a curse." There was a way.

"Of course, you would think of a curse instead of a blessing. Your magic is limited by its own rotten core!"

And that was deflection! Another very sign of a lie! A way to keep people from the truth as this fairy had been trying to do all his life! If it was a curse, he'd turn it into a blessing; anything to reunite him with his son. "Anyway, it can't be done. Not without a great price."

All magic came with a price, he was well aware of that. It was his stock and trade. But he was already paying his, so if this curse would take him to a land where magic didn't exist, then what did he have to fear of a price?!

"I've already paid a great price."

"So, you'd be willing to sacrifice this world for the next? Because that's how great the price is."

Willing?! He'd sign a contract now and condemn this entire world and the entire race of fairies to certain death if that was what it took.

"Well, what do you think?"

"Well, then I'll comfort myself knowing that such a curse is beyond your abilities," she snapped.

"Oh, for now," he threatened, pointing his dagger at her. She didn't flinch. And it only served to emphasize his anger and dissatisfaction with her answers further. He'd prove her and her entire swarm of bugs wrong if it was the last thing he did! "But I've got all the time in the world. I will do nothing else. I will love nothing else. I will find a way. You took my son, but I will get him back."

"I didn't take your son."

"You took my son, but I will get him back!" he screamed at her.

The Blue Fairy leaned in closer. "You drove him away."

Something inside of him snapped, something desperate to see her bleed at her words and he thrust the dagger out her, forcing her little wings to fly away to avoid it. Without a mark on her he lunged again but again she escaped the point of it! He tried to concentrate his magic, to hold her still so that he could choke the air from her lungs and see just how well a fairy could hold up to such torture, but before he had the chance, she flew, sailed high about him, up and through the trees, until she was out of sight!

"I will find him!" he screamed after her. "I will find him!" He vowed…

"I will find him…"

He looked at Zoso, stared at the being across from him in the empty field as the voices in his head buzzed indistinctly. Good or bad, he didn't care. As long as he had this curse, he knew what he was going to use it for, he knew his purpose, and it hadn't changed from the day he'd first taken it on. His duty, his goal, was always to save his son. No matter the cost.

"I will find him!" he growled at the ghost across from him. "No matter what the price, no matter what the curse, I don't care who I have to go through or who I have to kill, I will have my boy back."

A wide grin spread across Zoso's face before he disappeared from his sight for good as an idea began forming in his mind. It was an idea that left no room for Zoso, or Nimue, or anything else that had mattered before this. His eyes narrowed in the direction the fairy had disappeared in as the idea took root and began to grow.

And then the voices in his head finally became his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, welcome to the end. I really hope that you enjoyed this story! The next story in The Chronicles of the Dark One will be published starting sometime between January and March of 2020 and will be called The Dark One Chronicles: The Dark Curse. It will cover everything that took place in the Enchanted Forest beginning just after Rumple has vowed to find a curse to take him to Baelfire and ending with the Dark Curse being cast and carrying everyone off to Storybrooke.
> 
> Of course, if you liked what you read please give kudos or comments! I love getting those wonderful little gems in my inbox and communicating with the people reading on a personal level. And if you want to read more, please check out any of the other fictions in the Chronicles. For more information on the Chronicles of the Dark One, the Moments Series, upcoming fictions, posting and publishing dates, or a reading order check out my profile for updates. Peace and Happy Reading!


End file.
